VS2012 C++ warning C4005: '__useHeader': macro redefinition

Question

While migrating an old C++ project from Visual Studio 6 up to Visual Studio 2012, we came across an odd set of warnings from inside the standard Microsoft platform headers:<

Answer 1

For me this happened with Visual Studio 2017 (both fresh and repaired installation). Obviously the Windows 7.1 SDK had been installed before VS2017 and had been integrated into a Visual Studio 2005 installation.

In my case the two files:

• %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0\Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user.props
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0\Microsoft.Cpp.x64.user.props

contained references to the include directories and libraries of the Windows 7.1 SDK. Removing these references did the job.

Keep in mind that every single C++ project for Win32 and x64 respectively inherits from these property sheets.