The installer said: . Alex clicked it.
The small vs_community__...exe downloaded in seconds. Alex double-clicked it.
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64 Alex chose the Developer Command Prompt. Typed cl hello.cpp . And there it was:
Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 19.29.30154 for x64 ... hello.cpp The hello.exe ran perfectly. The story ended with a success message on the screen: Hello, World!
The first rule Alex learned: No "visualcpp2019.exe" from a random forum. The only safe source is visualstudio.microsoft.com .
Alex had just finished writing a simple "Hello, World!" program in Notepad++. The code was perfect: #include <iostream> , int main() , the whole nine yards. But when Alex opened the command prompt and tried to type cl hello.cpp , the system just replied: 'cl' is not recognized as an internal or external command.
Chapter 1: The Problem