Visual Studio

This page describes how to use Visual Studio as an IDE and build system for OS development. The use of the Clang toolchain is recommended, but using Microsoft’s native MSVC compiler is possible as well.

1. Using MSVC and msbuild with Visual Studio

Caution
MSVC for OSDev

It is possible to use MSVC for OS development, but it is heavily advised against for a number of reasons.

  • It is proprietary and not properly documented.

  • It is difficult and sometimes impossible to do certain things required for OS development using a pure MS toolchain.

  • Few people will be willing to provide help when something goes wrong.