How to make Visual Studio use the native amd64 toolchain

Question

How can I get Visual Studio 2012 to use the native amd64 toolchain, rather than the default x86_amd64 cross-compiler?

I am building a large library that causes the linker to run out of memory when doing whole program optimization and link-time code generation.

I found two older posts (here and here) asking this same question, but no answers yet. Microsoft provides documentation on how to specify the toolchain on the command line, but not in the IDE.

Answer 1

There is another method of forcing use of the 64-bit linker on a per-project basis for Visual Studio 2013. Edit your .vcxproj file and insert the following after the <Import...Microsoft.Cpp.Defaults line:

  <Import Project="$(VCTargetsPath)\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" />
  <PropertyGroup>
    <PreferredToolArchitecture>x64</PreferredToolArchitecture>
  </PropertyGroup>

Answer 2

You need to set the environment variable "_IsNativeEnvironment" to "true" prior to starting Visual Studio 2012 IDE:

set _IsNativeEnvironment=true
start "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" your_solution.sln

For Visual Studio 2013, the name of the environment variable is different:

set PreferredToolArchitecture=x64
sbm start "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" your_solution.sln

Beware that this technique does not work if the version of the IDE does not match the version of the toolchain. That is, if you use VS2013 IDE configured to run VS2012 compiler, you are out of luck. But such combination is uncommon.

Here are some links for further information:

difference between VS12 and VS13

how to embed PreferredToolArchitecture into the project in VS13

Answer 3

If your goal is to use the native environment rather than specifically amd64_x86, you can set the UseNativeEnvironment property in your project file:

<PropertyGroup>
  <UseNativeEnvironment>true</UseNativeEnvironment>
</PropertyGroup>

(I have successfully added it to the "Globals" PropertyGroup.)

You can check which toolchain is being used by adding the /Bv compiler option. Example output is below. Notice that the toolchain directory appears after bin\ (amd64_x86 in this case).

2>ClCompile:
2>  Compiler Passes:
2>   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\amd64_x86\CL.exe:        Version 18.00.31101.0
2>   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\amd64_x86\c1.dll:        Version 18.00.31101.0
2>   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\amd64_x86\c1xx.dll:      Version 18.00.31101.0
2>   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\amd64_x86\c2.dll:        Version 18.00.31101.0
2>   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\amd64_x86\link.exe:      Version 12.00.31101.0
2>   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\amd64\mspdb120.dll:      Version 12.00.31101.0
2>   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\amd64_x86\1033\clui.dll: Version 18.00.31101.0