Visual studio 2015 gives me errors upon creating a simple test console program

Question

Here is the code I am using.

#include \"stdafx.h\"
#include 

int main() {
    std::cout << \"hi\";

    return 0;
}

Answer 1

After running in similar problems once more with VS2017 I took a closer look at what caused all this. And the main reason was that I was still using modified user.props files. Which was for a while a solution to add global include and library paths to all projects. But this feature is deprecated by Microsoft and the content of those files should be reset.

The files I'm talking about are the user.props files in C:\Users\your_name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0 For testing you can simply rename (or delete if you like risks) them and restart VS. It will create empty files for those now. And if you are on Windows 10 then in most cases this is already enough to fix all your problems. Even in older VS versions (I tested with VS2010-VS2017, for even older VS versions the troubles tend to involve registry keys and don't involve this props files). Windows/VS has become now really good at finding all the system libraries (including DirectX which was the main reason we had to modify those files in the past) and adding them in the correct include order.

Also a warning as I've seen other people recomment that. Do not change any .prop installed by the SDK. If you really need to work with props then create and add your own property sheets (which can overwrite any defaults) to your project. And don't worry, those will not be checked in to source-control so you can still distribute your project to others.

If you are still on an older Windows it might not be as easy as in Windows 10, but I'll try to give some hints:

What you are missing for that concrete error is the new $UniversalCRT_IncludePath. No need to hardcode that path, that macro should contain the correct one. So add $(UniversalCRT_IncludePath); to the IncludePath in your own property which you add then to the project.

And for LibraryPath add the correct path per platform-file, like $(UniversalCRT_LibraryPath_x64); for .x64. and $(UniversalCRT_LibraryPath_x86); for .Win32.

What also might be useful when trying to fix this: You can find out the values of all the $(MACRO) variables used in the build system inside VisualStudio. They are just very well hidden: Go in properties - custom build steps - click on command line - then don't type anything but click the down button to get "edit..." - you click that - you get a dialog which has a "Macros>>" button. And that contains a list with all macro values.