Visual Studio 14 2015

New in version 3.1.

Generates Visual Studio 14 (VS 2015) project files.

Project Types

Only Visual C++ and C# projects may be generated (and Fortran with Intel compiler integration). Other types of projects (JavaScript, Powershell, Python, etc.) are not supported.

Platform Selection

The default target platform name (architecture) is Win32.

The CMAKE_GENERATOR_PLATFORM variable may be set, perhaps via the cmake -A option, to specify a target platform name (architecture). For example:

  • cmake -G "Visual Studio 14 2015" -A Win32

  • cmake -G "Visual Studio 14 2015" -A x64

  • cmake -G "Visual Studio 14 2015" -A ARM

For compatibility with CMake versions prior to 3.1, one may specify a target platform name optionally at the end of the generator name. This is supported only for:

Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64

Specify target platform x64.

Visual Studio 14 2015 ARM

Specify target platform ARM.

Toolset Selection

The v140 toolset that comes with Visual Studio 14 2015 is selected by default. The CMAKE_GENERATOR_TOOLSET option may be set, perhaps via the cmake -T option, to specify another toolset.

New in version 3.8: For each toolset that comes with this version of Visual Studio, there are variants that are themselves compiled for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) hosts (independent of the architecture they target). By default this generator uses the 32-bit variant even on a 64-bit host. One may explicitly request use of either the 32-bit or 64-bit host tools by adding either host=x86 or host=x64 to the toolset specification. See the CMAKE_GENERATOR_TOOLSET variable for details.

New in version 3.14: Added support for host=x86 option.

Windows 10 SDK Maximum Version for VS 2015

New in version 3.19.

Microsoft stated in a "Windows 10 October 2018 Update" blog post that Windows 10 SDK versions (15063, 16299, 17134, 17763) are not supported by VS 2015 and are only supported by VS 2017 and later. Therefore by default CMake automatically ignores Windows 10 SDKs beyond 10.0.14393.0.

However, there are other recommendations for certain driver/Win32 builds that indicate otherwise. A user can override this behavior by either setting the CMAKE_VS_WINDOWS_TARGET_PLATFORM_VERSION_MAXIMUM to a false value or setting the CMAKE_VS_WINDOWS_TARGET_PLATFORM_VERSION_MAXIMUM to the string value of the required maximum (e.g. 10.0.15063.0).