Qt 5.8 msvc 2015 compile error

Question

I have installed Qt using an offline installer qt-opensource-windows-x86-msvc2015_64-5.8.0. I have visual studio community edition 2017 installed with c++ build tools. because it's compiler was incompatible with the qt version, then I installed visual c++ build tools 2015 from http://landinghub.visualstudio.com/visual-cpp-build-tools . When I try to compile a project it gives an error :-1: error: LNK1158: cannot run 'rc.exe'. Heres how my qt kit looks like,

Can someone figure out whats the mistake and how to fix it. Thanks.

Answer 1

I've fixed this both on my own machine and on several co-workers machines.

It tends to happen when you have both Visual Studio 2015 and VS 2017 installed. Or more precisely, multiple versions of the Windows SDK installed. When that happens, the vcvars32.bat script (located in your Visual Studio install dir) does not correctly add the location of the resource compiler (rc.exe) to your PATH. Thus, QT Creator runs vcvars32.bat (as specified in Qt Creator under Option->Build&Run->Compilers, but the tools directory for the Windows SDK Kit isn't properly added to the PATH environment.

The simple fix is to add the appropriate version of RC.exe to your path.

Do this from the command line:

cd "c:\program files(x86)"
dir /s rc.exe

You'll get several versions (x86 and x64) and for several versions of the SDK. Add the PATH for where rc.exe lives for the version that corresponds to the SDK and build flavor to your vcvars32.bat startup script.

For example:

PATH="C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.15063.0\x86";%PATH%

Restart Qt Creator and that should fix it.

Another fix that worked for me is to uninstall all versions of Visual Studio (and all those side installs of SQL, Windows SDKs, dev tools, etc...). Reboot. Then cleanly install VS 2017 again. Then cleanly uninstall and re-install all of Qt again. That seemed to work for me. A wonderful way to spend an afternoon.