Msvcup

lastmod 2026-02-16created 2026-02-161 edits

Hermetic install of MSVC/SDK from the CLI

About

• Native Windows development is complex and inefficient due to its dependency on installing Visual Studio
• Tens of GB of install size, opaque component management, version mismatches, and similar issues hurt developer productivity
• To solve this, the lightweight CLI tool ‘msvcup’ was developed, which can automatically install the MSVC toolchain and Windows SDK per version, in isolated form
• msvcup provides a reproducible build environment through JSON manifest parsing, automatic environment setup (autoenv), lock file support, and more
• This approach enables a fully automated, script-based build system without relying on the Visual Studio Installer

See also

• MSVC

Favorite site

• Github - marler8997/msvcup
• Welcome to Johnny's World
• I fixed the native Windows development environment | GeekNews