How do YOU reduce compile time, and linking time for Visual C++ projects (native C++)?

Question

How do YOU reduce compile time, and linking time for VC++ projects (native C++)?

Please specify if each suggestion applies to debug, release, or both.

Answer 1

If you have large complex headers that must be included by most of the .cpp files in your build process, and which are not changed very often, you can precompile them. In a Visual C++ project with a typical configuration, this is simply a matter of including them in stdafx.h. This feature has its detractors, but libraries that make full use of templates tend to have a lot of stuff in headers, and precompiled headers are the simplest way to speed up builds in that case.