How to setup MSVC2010

How to set up MSVC2010 without buying Visual Studio

Unfortunately it is rather complicated to set up MSVC2010 without getting a license for Visual Studio. The bare WinSDK 7.1 will produce this error:

   LINK : fatal error LNK1123: failure during conversion to COFF: file invalid or corrupt

To fix this problem you need to install KB2519277, which unfortunately misses some headers, causing your build to fail with errors about headers not being found.

• Make sure .Net framework 4.x is installed, installation of the WinSDK will not allow you to select compilers otherwise.
• Install Visual C++ 2010 Express from http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs#DownloadFamilies_4
• Uninstall any Visual C++ 2010 runtime/redistributable newer or equal to 10.0.30319 (Otherwise, it will cause a failure: Installation of the “Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7″ product has reported the following error: Please refer to Samples\Setup\HTML\ConfigDetails.htm document for further information)
• Install Windows SDK 7.1 from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8279 (make sure to include headers, libraries, tools, compilers and the debugging tools).
• Install VS 2010 SP1 from http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=23691 for the missing headers (this requires VS Express).
• Install MSVC 2010 SP1 Compiler Update from http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=4422 for the compiler fixes.