It is often useful to be able to invoke the development environment from the command line. To do this, the environment needs to be set up appropriately for .NET. A .bat file is supplied as part of the installation and can be found at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat . Executing this will correctly set up your local environment.
The IDE is invoked by typing devenv at the command-line prompt. A list of arguments can be obtained by typing devenv /? . Here is the result:
Microsoft (R) Development Environment Version 7.00.9466. Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1984-2001. All rights reserved.
Usage: devenv [solutionfile | projectfile | anyfile.ext] [switches]
You can invoke devenv with a first argument to specify a solution file or project file. You can also invoke devenv with a first argument that is any other kind of file that you just want to open in an editor. When you supply a project file, the IDE opens it in the context of a solution by looking for a .sln file with the same base name as the project file in the same directory as the project file. If no such .sln file exists, then the IDE looks for a single .sln file that references the project. If no such single .sln file exists, then the IDE creates an unsaved solution with a default .sln file name that has the same base name as the project file.
Command line builds: devenv solutionfile.sln /build solutionconfig [ /project projectnameorfile [ /projectconfig name ] ]
Available command line switches:
/build build the specified solution configuration /project specifies the project to build instead of solution must specify /build to use /project /projectconfig specifies project configuration to build must specify /project to use /projectconfig /out write build output to specified file /rebuild like /build but forces a clean first /clean clean up build outputs /deploy build the specified solution configuration and then deploy it /run run the specified solution configuration /runexit run the specified solution configuration and then terminate /command executes the specified internal command line after startup /mditabs use tabbed documents interface /mdi use MDI interface /fn use specified font name /fs use specified font size /LCID use specified language ID /noVSIP disables VSIP developers license key for VSIP testing /safemode only default environment and services load for stability /resetskippkgs allow VsPackages once flagged for loading failures to load again
Product-specific switches:
/debugexe Open the specified executable to be debugged. The remainder of the command line is passed to this executable as its arguments. /useenv Use PATH, INCLUDE, LIBPATH, and LIB environment variables instead of IDE paths for VC++ builds.
To attach the debugger from the command line, use: vs7jit.exe -p <pid>
If you have any comments or suggestions, especially contributions to improve this set of instructions, please contact me.