Getting Started

This guide will help you install msvc-kit and set up your first MSVC environment.

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11 (x64 or ARM64)
• ~2-5 GB disk space for MSVC + SDK

Installation

Via Winget (Recommended)

The easiest way to install on Windows:

winget install loonghao.msvc-kit

Via PowerShell Script

One-liner installation:

irm https://github.com/loonghao/msvc-kit/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex

Via Cargo

If you have Rust installed:

cargo install msvc-kit

From Source

git clone https://github.com/loonghao/msvc-kit.git
cd msvc-kit
cargo install --path .

Quick Start

1. Download MSVC and Windows SDK

msvc-kit download

This downloads:

• Latest MSVC compiler (cl.exe, link.exe, etc.)
• Latest Windows SDK (headers, libraries, tools)

Default location: %LOCALAPPDATA%\loonghao\msvc-kit\data

On Linux the default is $XDG_DATA_HOME/msvc-kit (~/.local/share/msvc-kit), on macOS ~/Library/Application Support/com.loonghao.msvc-kit.

2. Setup Environment

PowerShell (Recommended)

msvc-kit setup --script --shell powershell | Invoke-Expression

CMD

msvc-kit setup --script --shell cmd > setup.bat && setup.bat

Bash (WSL/Git Bash)

eval "$(msvc-kit setup --script --shell bash)"

3. Verify Installation

# Check cl.exe is available
cl /?

# Check version
cl
# Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 19.xx.xxxxx for x64

What Gets Installed

After running msvc-kit download, your directory structure looks like:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\loonghao\msvc-kit\data\
├── VC/
│   └── Tools/
│       └── MSVC/
│           └── 14.xx.xxxxx/
│               ├── bin/
│               │   └── Hostx64/
│               │       └── x64/
│               │           ├── cl.exe
│               │           ├── link.exe
│               │           └── ...
│               ├── include/
│               └── lib/
├── Windows Kits/
│   └── 10/
│       ├── bin/
│       │   └── 10.0.xxxxx.0/
│       ├── Include/
│       │   └── 10.0.xxxxx.0/
│       └── Lib/
│           └── 10.0.xxxxx.0/
├── downloads/
│   ├── msvc/
│   └── sdk/
└── .msvc-kit-extracted/

The manifest cache lives outside the installation root, under the platform cache directory (%LOCALAPPDATA%\loonghao\msvc-kit\cache\manifests on Windows), and follows the installation root when it is relocated.

Environment Variables Set

After msvc-kit setup, these environment variables are configured:

Variable	Description
VCINSTALLDIR	VC installation directory
VCToolsInstallDir	VC tools directory
VCToolsVersion	VC tools version
WindowsSdkDir	Windows SDK directory
WindowsSDKVersion	Windows SDK version
INCLUDE	Include paths for compiler
LIB	Library paths for linker
PATH	Updated with bin directories

Next Steps

• Download Options - Customize download behavior
• Configuration - Persistent configuration
• Library API - Use as Rust library