Visual Studio Command Prompt vs. a regular command prompt?

Question

When I open a Visual Studio command prompt (for example, opened with menu Start -> Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 -> Visual Studio T

Answer 1

The article The Visual Studio Command Prompt has a nice explanation:

Let's look at the "Visual Studio Command Prompt" in more detail.

It appears to just set the path for you and put you in (Ta Da!) the VC directory under Visual Studio. Not even the C# directory and certainly not the VB directory. I guess they assume that anyone who uses this tool is really hard core and programs directly against the hard drive with a magnifying glass and a magnet.

What it actually does is run this DOS command. (In my case.)

%comspec% /k ""C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"" x86

What does vcvarsall.bat do? Well, it sets the target compiler environment so you can compile code for a different processor.