We need to install the “Desktop development with C++” workload, which provides the tools needed for developing Windows desktop applications that can run on Windows. For information on developing Universal Windows Platform apps, check out this post.Īfter installing Visual Studio, open the Visual Studio Installer from the Start menu and navigate to the Workloads Page. In this post we will dive into the “Desktop development with C++” workload inside Visual Studio and go over the workflow used to develop a desktop app. Developing for Windows desktop allows you to reach the highest number of users on any non-mobile development platform. Popular desktop applications like Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, and Google Chrome all are built using the same Win32 APIs that serve as the foundation for Windows desktop development.

With C++ and Visual Studio, you use Windows SDKs to target many versions of Windows ranging from Windows XP to Windows 10, which is well over a billion devices.

For up-to-date documentation see Overview of Windows Programming in C++.įor an overview of the Visual Studio capabilities described in this article, see Develop C and C++ applications.The Windows desktop platform has long been the most popular platform among C++ application developers.

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