April 20, 2017
On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 17:06:15 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 14:44:54 UTC, Meta wrote:
>> On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 14:29:28 UTC, Jolly James wrote:
>>> What has the DMD compiler to do with a VS plugin that I am not using?
>>
>> You said in your original post "DMD installer only offers to install VS2013". This isn't the DMD installer but the Visual D installer that installs the plugin for the appropriate version of Visual Studio. As Mike said, though, you can also just edit sc.ini if you don't want to use Visual D.
>
> It actually does offer to install both VS 2013 and Visual D.

Wow, I did not know that. Seems a little excessive.
April 20, 2017
On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 00:13:29 UTC, Meta wrote:
> On Wednesday, 19 April 2017 at 20:47:51 UTC, Jolly James wrote:
>> I cannot even fix it myself because DMD is looking for "bin\link.exe". But with VS2017 the path would actually be something like "\bin\HostX64\x64".
>
> Please ignore Mike's answer. Visual D is maintained by Rainers Schuetze and is hosted here[1] on github. From the readme:

Why should I be ignored? Specially when I'm right?

April 20, 2017
On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 17:10:05 UTC, Meta wrote:
> On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 17:06:15 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>> On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 14:44:54 UTC, Meta wrote:
>>> On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 14:29:28 UTC, Jolly James wrote:
>>>> What has the DMD compiler to do with a VS plugin that I am not using?
>>>
>>> You said in your original post "DMD installer only offers to install VS2013". This isn't the DMD installer but the Visual D installer that installs the plugin for the appropriate version of Visual Studio. As Mike said, though, you can also just edit sc.ini if you don't want to use Visual D.
>>
>> It actually does offer to install both VS 2013 and Visual D.
>
> Wow, I did not know that. Seems a little excessive.

But anyway, that's how it is.

By the way: installing VS2013 is only offered to you, if no compatible version (atm VS2015 or older) is found on your machine.
April 21, 2017
On Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 04:58:55 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> You can install the MS Build Tools 2015. DMD will work with that.

I'd be very nice if instead of offering to install VS, it offered the build tools. Also mentioning which installations are compatible so that the user can select the one he/she prefers.

A lot of people are confused with this.
April 22, 2017
On Friday, 21 April 2017 at 14:37:40 UTC, NotSpooky wrote:

> I'd be very nice if instead of offering to install VS, it offered the build tools. Also mentioning which installations are compatible so that the user can select the one he/she prefers.
>
> A lot of people are confused with this.

There's no issue with compatibility. DMD is perfectly compatible with all recent versions of VS, including 2017. The issue is that 2017 has changed its directory tree and the DMD *installer* can't pick it up automatically. Now that the breakage is known, the next the installer will be updated and the next (hopefully) DMD release will include it.
April 22, 2017
On Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 02:13:09 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

> There's no issue with compatibility. DMD is perfectly compatible with all recent versions of VS, including 2017. The issue is that 2017 has changed its directory tree and the DMD *installer* can't pick it up automatically. Now that the breakage is known, the next the installer will be updated and the next (hopefully) DMD release will include it.

Oh ok so it works with all of them.

I don't have Windows so I don't know if this has changed, but last time I tried to install dmd there it asked to install VS 2013, I know some people that didn't want to install DMD because VS is huge, now that the build tools are an option maybe that's the one the installer should suggest (or maybe even suggest both).
April 22, 2017
On Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 02:22:56 UTC, NotSpooky wrote:
> On Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 02:13:09 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>
>> There's no issue with compatibility. DMD is perfectly compatible with all recent versions of VS, including 2017. The issue is that 2017 has changed its directory tree and the DMD *installer* can't pick it up automatically. Now that the breakage is known, the next the installer will be updated and the next (hopefully) DMD release will include it.
>
> Oh ok so it works with all of them.
>
> I don't have Windows so I don't know if this has changed, but last time I tried to install dmd there it asked to install VS 2013, I know some people that didn't want to install DMD because VS is huge, now that the build tools are an option maybe that's the one the installer should suggest (or maybe even suggest both).

That was discussed so many times... DMD don't need VS itself but rather compilers and tools, which is included in Windows SDK's, and takes just 4GB or so.
But this is not an issue for anyone dealing with native development on Windows since all this stuff is neccessary.

Also VS 2017 is much more modular now, so its now lighter than ever before.
but of course for C++ (and D) you still need Windows SDK.

IIRC D also can be used without VS or WinSDK at all, just forget about m32mscoff and x64 builds
April 22, 2017
On Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 02:22:56 UTC, NotSpooky wrote:
>
> I don't have Windows so I don't know if this has changed, but last time I tried to install dmd there it asked to install VS 2013, I know some people that didn't want to install DMD because VS is huge, now that the build tools are an option maybe that's the one the installer should suggest (or maybe even suggest both).

Realistically, anyone who does serious Windows development is likely going to have Visual Studio installed anyway. The build tools are fine for the rest, but anyone wanting to use Visual D will need VS. Since the installer offers to install Visual D, it only makes sense to offer to install VS. It might be good to offer a choice between the build tools and VS, or at the very least offer links to the build tools and more recent versions of VS to be installed manually.
April 22, 2017
On Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 02:39:41 UTC, evilrat wrote:

>
> Also VS 2017 is much more modular now, so its now lighter than ever before.
> but of course for C++ (and D) you still need Windows SDK.

The SDK stuff is installed with VS.

>
> IIRC D also can be used without VS or WinSDK at all, just forget about m32mscoff and x64 builds

Yes, that is correct. But that comes with its own headaches.
April 30, 2017
On Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 02:46:30 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 02:39:41 UTC, evilrat wrote:
>
>>
>> Also VS 2017 is much more modular now, so its now lighter than ever before.
>> but of course for C++ (and D) you still need Windows SDK.
>
> The SDK stuff is installed with VS.
>
>>
>> IIRC D also can be used without VS or WinSDK at all, just forget about m32mscoff and x64 builds
>
> Yes, that is correct. But that comes with its own headaches.

I had a working VS 2015 with VisualD and DMD. Today I uninstalled VS2015 and VisualD, then installed VS2017 and latest VisualD but when I create new D windows app and try to run it I get this error:

Command Line

set PATH=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.10.25017\bin\HostX86\x86;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\bin\x86;.\windows\bin;%PATH%
dmd -g -debug -X -Xf"Win32\Debug\testapp.json" -deps="Win32\Debug\testapp.dep" -c -of"Win32\Debug\testapp.obj" winmain.d
if errorlevel 1 goto reportError

set LIB=
echo. > D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg
echo "Win32\Debug\testapp.obj","Win32\Debug\testapp.exe","Win32\Debug\testapp.map",ole32.lib+ >> D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg
echo kernel32.lib+ >> D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg
echo user32.lib+ >> D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg
echo comctl32.lib+ >> D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg
echo comdlg32.lib+ >> D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg
echo user32.lib+ >> D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg
echo kernel32.lib/NOMAP/CO/NOI/DELEXE /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS >> D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VisualD\pipedmd.exe" -deps Win32\Debug\testapp.lnkdep link.exe @D:\git\testapp\testapp\Win32\Debug\testapp.build.lnkarg
if errorlevel 1 goto reportError
if not exist "Win32\Debug\testapp.exe" (echo "Win32\Debug\testapp.exe" not created! && goto reportError)

goto noError

:reportError
echo Building Win32\Debug\testapp.exe failed!

:noError
Output

Microsoft (R) Incremental Linker Version 14.10.25019.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

"Win32\Debug\testapp.obj,Win32\Debug\testapp.exe,Win32\Debug\testapp.map,ole32.lib+"
kernel32.lib+
user32.lib+
comctl32.lib+
comdlg32.lib+
user32.lib+
kernel32.lib/NOMAP/CO/NOI/DELEXE /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS
LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file 'Win32\Debug\testapp.obj,Win32\Debug\testapp.exe,Win32\Debug\testapp.map,ole32.lib+'
Building Win32\Debug\testapp.exe failed!

I tried updating sc.ini to new paths but I still get this error. Can someone offer some advice?