Where is WindowsSDK_IncludePath defined?

Question

The macro $(WindowsSDK_IncludePath) has the values shown in the picture.

I'd like to know where those values are defined, they must be defined in some files.

The picture was taken from Visual Studio 2013.

Answer 1

For me it was the file Microsoft.Cpp.Common.props in folder C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140, where I had to change the hardcoded Windows 10 SDK version from 10.0.10240.0 to 10.0.10586.0.

<!-- 10.0.10240.0 is the hardcoded checked-in version of uCRT that we use in case we target 8.1 SDK -->
<TargetUniversalCRTVersion Condition="'$(TargetUniversalCRTVersion)' == ''  and ('$(TargetPlatformVersion)' == '8.1' or '$(DefineWindowsSDK_71A)' == 'true')">10.0.10586.0</TargetUniversalCRTVersion>

I'm using VS2015 on Windows 10 and wasn't able to compile against Windows 8.1 SDK because of missing include files. Installing the standalone Windows 10 SDK didn't help either (because it doesn't contain ucrt files for 10.0.10240 like ctype.h a.s.o.).

Answer 2

In my case, the WindowsSDK_IncludePath variable was correctly defined and in fact it worked perfectly in Visual Studio 2013. So I even uninstalled and reinstalled VS2015. Then I found thanks to this link that the preset macro variables can be modified by specific user settings. These user settings are stored in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MSBuild\v4.0\Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user.props which in my case read as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <ImportGroup Label="PropertySheets">
  </ImportGroup>
  <PropertyGroup Label="UserMacros" />
  <PropertyGroup>
    <IncludePath>$(VC_IncludePath);$(WindowsSDK_IncludePath);C:\Program Files (x86)\CodeSynthesis XSD 4.0\include;</IncludePath>
    <LibraryPath>$(VC_LibraryPath_x86);$(WindowsSDK_LibraryPath_x86);C:\Program Files (x86)\CodeSynthesis XSD 4.0\lib\vc-12.0;</LibraryPath>
    <ExecutablePath>C:\Program Files (x86)\CodeSynthesis XSD 4.0\bin;$(VC_ExecutablePath_x86);$(WindowsSDK_ExecutablePath);$(VS_ExecutablePath);$(MSBuild_ExecutablePath);$(SystemRoot)\SysWow64;$(FxCopDir);$(PATH);</ExecutablePath>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <ItemDefinitionGroup />
  <ItemGroup />
</Project>

Somehow the <IncludePath> sentence made it impossible for VS2015 to find the correct value. In my laptop computer where everything worked correctly, the file was basically empty:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <ImportGroup Label="PropertySheets">
  </ImportGroup>
  <PropertyGroup Label="UserMacros" />
  <PropertyGroup>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <ItemDefinitionGroup />
  <ItemGroup />
</Project>

After setting my file just like the one in my laptop, everything worked normally. Of course I lost the execution preference of CodeSynthesis XSD but right now I am not working on any project that use it. I will continue experimenting with different variants of this file.