Setup ===== Setting Scripts --------------- The "driver" scripts that you will be invoking are cl-NN, link-NN, lib-NN, etc., where NN is the Visual Studio version (e.g., 11, 12, 14, etc). There are also the "configuration" scripts, msvc-NN, which provide the Visual Studio/SDK location and configuration (in a way similar to vcvars32.bat). There is also a bunch of other helper scripts that you will not need to modify or invoke directly. All of these scripts should reside in the same directory. In particular, you cannot copy, say, cl-NN to /usr/local/bin/ while leaving the rest in some other directory -- this will not work. What you can do, however, is create symlinks to the driver scripts in /usr/local/bin/ -- this will work. If you only need to make the scripts usable by a single user, then the easiest approach is to add the script's directory to your PATH in, say, .bashrc, for example: export PATH=$HOME/msvc-linux:$PATH Alternatively, if you have something like ~/bin/ that is already in PATH, then you can simply add symlinks to the scripts. Install Wine ------------ You need 1.7.55 or later. Previous versions are known not to work with Visual Studio 14. For Ubuntu: # add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa # apt-get update # apt-get install --no-install-recommends winbind # apt-get install wine1.7 wine-mono4.5.6 wine-gecko2.40 Configure Wine -------------- $ winecfg If it suggests installing some stuff, ignore it. Change the platform to Windows 7 (later version will probably also work). Prepare to Copy Visual Studio ----------------------------- Note that below we assume that you have installed Visual Studio in the default location. The following instructions are for mounting the VM parition on Linux host. However, simply archiving the required directories on the running VM and copying them to the Linux host should work as well. Mount the VM disk (make sure it is not running) where you installed Visual Studio. First get the second partition offset () and sector size (normally 512, as below). # fdisk -lu .../windows-7.img Then mount via the loopback device: # losetup -o $((512*)) /dev/loop0 ./windows-7.img # mount -o ro /dev/loop0 /mnt When finished copying Visual Studio, unmount and delete the loopback: # umount /mnt # losetup -d /dev/loop0 Copy and Setup Visual Studio 11 ------------------------------- $ mkdir -p ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0" $ cp -r "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0/VC" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0/" $ cp "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0/Common7/IDE/mspdb110.dll" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0/VC/bin/" $ mkdir -p ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits" $ cp -r "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/8.0" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/" Add lower-case symlinks for upper-case named headers: $ etc/lowercase-headers \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/8.0/Include" Run the VC11 redistributable DLLs installer for x86 from .../VC/redist/1033/. Add override for msvcr110.dll: run winecfg, select the "Libraries" tab, then enter the DLL name and "Add". Copy and Setup Visual Studio 12 ------------------------------- $ mkdir -p ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0" $ cp -r "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0/VC" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0/" $ mkdir -p ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits" $ cp -r "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/8.1" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/" Add lower-case symlinks for upper-case named headers: $ etc/lowercase-headers \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/8.1/Include" Run the VC12 redistributable DLLs installer for x86 from .../VC/redist/1033/. Add override for msvcr120.dll: run winecfg, select the "Libraries" tab, then enter the DLL name and "Add". Copy and Setup Visual Studio 14 ------------------------------- Note: 14 Update 2 requires Wine 1.9.8 or later (bug #34851). Note: if using 14 Update 2, then use the *-14u2 driver scripts. $ mkdir -p ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0" $ cp -r "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/VC" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/" $ cp "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/VC/redist/x86/Microsoft.VC140.CRT/msvcp140.dll" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/VC/bin/" Remove Microsoft's "experience improvement data uploade" which crashes: $ rm ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/VC/bin/vctip.exe" $ mkdir -p ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits" $ cp -r "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/8.1" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/" $ cp -r "/mnt/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/" Add lower-case symlinks for upper-case named headers: $ etc/lowercase-headers \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/8.1/Include" \ ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10/Include" Installing via the redistributable DLLs still does not work as of Wine 1.7.55. Instead, we have to manually copy a bunch of DLLs from /mnt/Windows/SysWoW64/ to VC/bin/ and add Wine overrides (run winecfg, select the "Libraries" tab, then enter the DLL name and "Add"). To discover the list of DLLs, run cl-14 to compile and link and executable (see Test below): any DLL that causes an error needs an override. For Wine 1.7.55 the list is: api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll ucrtbase.dll api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll vcruntime140.dll api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll api-ms-win-crt-conio-l1-1-0.dll Test ---- cl-NN /EHsc /TP hello-world.cxx ./hello-world.exe Usage ===== To suppress Wine debug messages (especially advisable if running executables built with more recent Visual Studio versions) you may want to add the following line to your .bashrc or similar: export WINEDEBUG=fixme-all Certain executions of the cl compiler (e.g., /EP /showIncludes) are very slow unless wineserver is started and a special voodoo dance is performed: # Kill existing Wine processes if any. # $ pkill wineserver $ pkill .exe # Verify no Wine processes are running. # $ pgrep wineserver $ pgrep .exe # Prepare test file. # cat > test.cpp #include ^D # Get time without wineserver. # $ time cl-NN /EP /showIncludes test.cpp >/dev/null # Start wineserver. # $ wineserver -p $ pgrep wineserver # The voodoo part: the first execution after starting wineserver will # hang, but all subsequent ones should be much faster. # $ cl-NN /EP /showIncludes test.cpp >/dev/null ^C # Get time with wineserver. # $ time cl-NN /EP /showIncludes test.cpp >/dev/null