VS2008 on Windows 7 RTM with x64 compiler broken

Question

I am having trouble getting x64 compilation to work on Windows 7 RTM (64-bit) with Visual Studio 2008 Professional (both with and without SP1). I have not installed the Windows 7 SDK, as Microsoft suggests might be the issue. The problem is that there are no x64/64-bit choices in the Configuration Manager of Visual Studio.

I do not have the "Microsoft Visual C++ Compilers 2008 Standard Edition" suggested in the link above installed on my computer. Any ideas what might fix this?

I have checked that I have the x64 compiler and tools installed with Visual Studio.

Solution found: Uninstall VS completely and reinstall. Issue resolved after SP1 installed (again). Very strange.

Answer 1

Are you using VS 2008 Express Edition?

You can add the x64 targets to the build configuration manually by downloading the Windows SDK (which include all the x64 compilers/linkers/libs/headers/... ) and following the instructions in this link:

http://jenshuebel.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/visual-c-2008-express-edition-and-64-bit-targets/

Answer 2

EDIT

Did you make sure to include the 64 bit toolset as part of the Visual Studio install? This toolset is an optional component that can be disabled during the initial install process. I believe you can add it back in by going through a Visual Studio repair process.

Original Answer

Are you using a clean windows 7 RTM install or did you upgrade from a previous version? There is at least one issue being reported by Visual Studio customers who upgraded an earlier build of Windows 7 to RTM.

Other, seemingly unrelated issue

• http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VistaUsersUninstallVisualStudio2010Beta1BeforeUpgradingToWindows7.aspx