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I was a little surprised to see our install instructions tell us to install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.Community. That was a fairly large download with the IDE included. I was wondering if the BuildTools package would work instead. I've tried it and my little test seemed to work. And it was only a 1GB download.

Has anyone else tried that? Would I run into limitations if I kept going?

1 Like
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I think Windows SDK + Build Tools should suffice. I didn't try this alternative installation route though.

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Yeah, I basically did a s/Community/BuildTools/ to the current instructions which also give you the Windows SDK and the VC++ tools that Swift's clang needs access to.

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Windows SDK is available as a separate installer, but how did you install Build Tools without installing IDE if you used Visual Studio installer? I use Visual Studio installer in batch mode giving it instructions to install only two components:

Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows11SDK.22621

and it installs IDE and whatever it wants.

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Microsoft C++ Build Tools - Visual Studio ?
There is a link https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vs_BuildTools.exe

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I just did

winget install --id Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools --exact --force --custom "--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows11SDK.22000 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64"
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Now I wonder if the Swift.Toolchain could have a dependency that does that so we just have to install one thing. I assume no or it would have been done?

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IANAL, but the Build Tools have a licensing requirement that requires that you have a VS license (aka you have the VS license by installing it). However, yes, technically, the Build Tools provides everything that is needed (VC libraries and headers).

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This is an interesting answer, though IANAL either :slight_smile:

If you can use the Visual Studio Community for free, you can also use the Build Tools with a valid free license.

Mind you that makes me wonder if I have that...