How can I use a single Visual Studio solution to build both x86 and x64 at the same time?

Question

I\'ve got an x86 Visual Studio solution with many project files in it. Some of the DLL files are designed to work as plug-ins to other applications on a user\'s system.

Answer 1

For C++, and if it's a project whose files/settings don't change often, one way to do it is create two projects within the solution, with both projects referring to the same source files. Then, in x64 builds, set one project to build 64-bit and the other 32-bit. (In x86 builds, set one as 32-bit and turn off the other.)

We've been using this for a while and it works fine.

Of course, you have to be careful that any changes you make to one are also made to its copy. i.e. if you add/remove a file or change its build setting, you have to do it in two places. Source-code changes still only need to be done once, because there's still only one copy of each source file.

And, of course, you may decide that doing this is more complex/risky than switching away from using the IDE. In our case it's worked really well, though.

Answer 2

Perhaps I've missed the point of this discussion.

Using Visual Studio, go to menu Build → Configuration Manager. In the Active Solution Platform drop down, select "New...", and a New Solution Platform dialog appears. Select x64 and accept the default Copy From. Close the dialog and the Configuration Manager.

Now open menu Build → Batch Build. Check those configurations you want to build and build them. You will find the x64 build executables separate from the Win32 executable files.

You can verify that these are what was intended by right clicking on the executable files, selecting Properties, and select the Compatibility tab. In the dropdown window you can check to see what operating systems the executable file can be run in.

Obviously, there may be some other tweaking you might have to do to get all the output files in their proper places, but this method seem somewhat simpler than fooling with build than those described above.

Answer 3

You are not going to be able to do this with the UI of Visual Studio. For this you will need to hack the MSBuild files.

Try this link from MSDN for MSBuild Overview

Answer 4

I think the best way of doing this is to invoke MSBuild from the command line. It shouldn't need editing of MSBuild files. Just run

msbuild myproj.sln /p:Configuration="Debug|Win32"
msbuild myproj.sln /p:Configuration="Debug|x64"

I assume that if a developer is using Visual Studio then they'll only be generating the DLL files so they can debug with them, and that you have a separate build process if you're actually deploying the DLL files.

Answer 5

I ran into this problem with a project running in Visual Studio 2008 (on Windows XP) (32-bit) and also Visual Studio 2010 (on Windows 7) (64-bit).

The solution I used was to use the $(PROGRAMFILES) variable. It resolved correctly on both machines.

Answer 6

We do something similar to build core assemblies for .NET Compact Framework.

Try this:

<Target Name="AfterBuild">
    <MSBuild Condition=" '$(Platform)' == 'x86' " Projects="$(MSBuildProjectFile)" Properties="Platform=x64;PlatFormTarget=x64" RunEachTargetSeparately="true" />
</Target>