I want to read some library files and I went to Tools>Options>Projects and Solutions>VC++ directories and I found the following :
$VSInstalldir/...
$VSInstalldir/...
$FrameworkSDKdir/
$WindowsSDKdir/...
$PATH
$SystemRoot/Syswow64/....
And I could locate only files inside $VSInstalldir . Where are $FrameworkSDKdir, $WindowsSDKdir, $PATH, $SystemRoot/Syswow64 supposed to be in Windows???
Most of those variables are set using batch files. You can find each one by going to your Visual Studio installation folder, then the VC subfolder and tracing through vcvarsall.bat.
For instance, on my VS2008 installation on WinXP:
Open C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat
Go to the x86 label, that points to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat
That file points to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat
This file (finally) contains all the variable definitions.
Another, easier, way is to open the Visual Studio Command Prompt under Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 -> Visual Studio Tools and then use the echo command to print all those variables.
Setting environment for using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 x86 tools.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC>echo %FrameworkDir%
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC>echo %VSInstalldir%
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0