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How to run msvc cl.exe from command-line (powershell)
edit
So you’ve installed Visual Studio and you want to run the compiler cl.exe from command-line. Microsoft makes it surprisingly hard.
They give you a shortcut which opens a terminal window with cmd.exe setup for compilation. But I don’t want a separate window, I want to use the terminal app.
You can run cmd.exe /k "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64 (location for your setup can be different).
But I don’t want to run inside cmd.exe. I want to use powershell.
What exactly does vcvarsall.bat do? Not much: it just sets some env variables and updates PATH. We can reverse-engineer what it does:
Now compare before.txt and after.txt to see what changed. I asked AI to do it for me and here’s the beginning of what I found:
CommandPromptType=Native
DevEnvDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\
ExtensionSdkDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Kits\10\ExtensionSDKs
EXTERNAL_INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\ATLMFC\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.26100.0\ucrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\winrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\cppwinrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\include\um
Framework40Version=v4.0
FrameworkDir=C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\
FrameworkDir64=C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\
... more stuff
I saved that to diff.txt file.
Now that we have that we can ask our friendly AI to convert this to a powershell function:
write powershell function that sets variables as seen in @diff.txt
I get something like this:
function set-msvc {
    <#
    .SYNOPSIS
        Sets Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt environment variables.
    .DESCRIPTION
        This function sets all the environment variables needed for Visual Studio 2022
        native x64 development, equivalent to running vcvars64.bat.
    .EXAMPLE
        Set-VsDevEnv
    #>
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param()

    $env:CommandPromptType = "Native"
    $env:DevEnvDir = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\"

    ... more stuff
We need to change one thing: $env:PATH from absolute to just adding paths to current $env:PATH so that it’ll adapt to future changes in PATH.
Now add that to $PROFILE and you can type set-msvc to setup powershell to have access to cl.exe, msbuild and other tools.
Below is the whole function but note that this is only for amd64 toolset. For 32-bit or arm setup would be different. You can get by re-running the above logic for vcvarsall.bat with different arguments.
function set-msvc {
    <#
    .SYNOPSIS
        Sets Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt environment variables.
    .DESCRIPTION
        This function sets all the environment variables needed for Visual Studio 2022
        native x64 development, equivalent to running vcvars64.bat.
    .EXAMPLE
        Set-VsDevEnv
    #>
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param()

    $env:CommandPromptType = "Native"
    $env:DevEnvDir = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\"
    $env:ExtensionSdkDir = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Kits\10\ExtensionSDKs"
    $env:EXTERNAL_INCLUDE = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\ATLMFC\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.26100.0\ucrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\winrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\cppwinrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\include\um"
    $env:Framework40Version = "v4.0"
    $env:FrameworkDir = "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\"
    $env:FrameworkDir64 = "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\"
    $env:FrameworkVersion = "v4.0.30319"
    $env:FrameworkVersion64 = "v4.0.30319"
    $env:FSHARPINSTALLDIR = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\FSharp\Tools"
    $env:HTMLHelpDir = "C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop"
    $env:INCLUDE = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\ATLMFC\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.26100.0\ucrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\winrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\cppwinrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\include\um"
    $env:is_x64_arch = "true"
    $env:LIB = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\ATLMFC\lib\x64;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\lib\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\lib\um\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.26100.0\ucrt\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\lib\10.0.26100.0\\um\x64"
    $env:LIBPATH = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\ATLMFC\lib\x64;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\lib\x64;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\lib\x86\store\references;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\UnionMetadata\10.0.26100.0;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\References\10.0.26100.0;C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319"
    $env:NETFXSDKDir = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\NETFXSDK\4.8\"
    $env:Path = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\bin\HostX64\x64;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\VC\VCPackages;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TestWindow;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\MSBuild\Current\bin\Roslyn;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.8 Tools\x64\;C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\FSharp\Tools;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Team Tools\DiagnosticsHub\Collector;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\Llvm\x64\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.26100.0\\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\\x64;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64;C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\Tools\;" + $env:Path + ";C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\Ninja;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\VC\Linux\bin\ConnectionManagerExe;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\vcpkg"
    $env:Platform = "x64"
    $env:UCRTVersion = "10.0.26100.0"
    $env:UniversalCRTSdkDir = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\"
    $env:VCIDEInstallDir = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\VC\"
    $env:VCINSTALLDIR = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\"
    $env:VCPKG_ROOT = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\vcpkg"
    $env:VCToolsInstallDir = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\"
    $env:VCToolsRedistDir = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Redist\MSVC\14.44.35112\"
    $env:VCToolsVersion = "14.44.35207"
    $env:VisualStudioVersion = "17.0"
    $env:VS170COMNTOOLS = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\Tools\"
    $env:VSCMD_ARG_app_plat = "Desktop"
    $env:VSCMD_ARG_HOST_ARCH = "x64"
    $env:VSCMD_ARG_TGT_ARCH = "x64"
    $env:VSCMD_VER = "17.14.24"
    $env:VSINSTALLDIR = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\"
    $env:WindowsLibPath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\UnionMetadata\10.0.26100.0;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\References\10.0.26100.0"
    $env:WindowsSdkBinPath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\"
    $env:WindowsSdkDir = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\"
    $env:WindowsSDKLibVersion = "10.0.26100.0\"
    $env:WindowsSdkVerBinPath = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.26100.0\"
    $env:WindowsSDKVersion = "10.0.26100.0\"
    $env:WindowsSDK_ExecutablePath_x64 = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.8 Tools\x64\"
    $env:WindowsSDK_ExecutablePath_x86 = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.8 Tools\"
    $env:__DOTNET_ADD_64BIT = "1"
    $env:__DOTNET_PREFERRED_BITNESS = "64"
    $env:__VSCMD_PREINIT_PATH = "C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft VS Code\bin;c:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Programs\cursor\resources\app\bin;C:\Program Files\gs\gs10.03.1\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\GitHub CLI\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit\;C:\Program Files\Rust stable MSVC 1.88\bin;C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\;C:\Program Files\nodejs\;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;C:\Program Files\CMake\bin;C:\Program Files\Go\bin;C:\Program Files\RedHat\Podman\;C:\Program Files\Tailscale\;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\resources\bin;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Links;C:\Users\kjk\.bun\bin;C:\Users\kjk\.dotnet\tools;C:\Users\kjk\go\bin;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Programs\superfile\;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop\bin;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Programs\cursor\resources\app\bin;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Roaming\npm;C:\Users\kjk\.dotnet\tools;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Programs\Antigravity\bin;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Programs\Zed\bin;C:\Users\kjk\go\bin;C:\Users\kjk\OneDrive\bin;C:\Users\kjk\.bin\jai\bin;C:\Users\kjk\.bin\mupdf-1.27.0;C:\Users\kjk\.local\bin;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Programs\WinMerge;C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.12_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python312\Scripts;C:\Users\kjk\OneDrive\bin\sublime_text"

    Write-Host "Visual Studio 2022 Developer Environment configured for x64." -ForegroundColor Green
}
til programming windows win32
Jan 16 2026

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