VS developer environment not found after following tutorial steps; blocked from building

[gknighted]

Type: Bug

Blocked from building code by the notification "cl.exe build and debug active file requires the Visual Studio developer environment."

1. Uninstall existing VS Code and Developer Tools to start clean
2. Install VS Code
3. From the Welcome page, click on "Get started with C++ development"
4. Install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools using the instructions provided there, and proceed to follow additional instructions, hitting buttons, etc.
5. Close VS Code
6. type "developer" into Start Menu to launch developer command prompt
7. confirm cl is recognized in developer command prompt
8. Launch VS Code
9. Go back to the C++ specific Welcome Page, and under the "Apply the Visual Studio developer environment" step, hit the button "Set Developer Environment". Receive a notification of success saying "amd64 developer environment for Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 successfully set."
10. Go to my *.cpp file, and hit "Run C/C++ file"
11. Choose "C/C++: cl.exe build and debug active file"

Expected result: code builds

Actual result: Get the failure notification "cl.exe build and debug active file requires the Visual Studio developer environment." This notification offers a button "Apply Developer Environment" but when I go through that step it doesn't help and gives me the additional failure notification "The source code could not be built because the Visual Studio developer environment was not applied."

All support info I find suggests this failure notification is due to not launching VS Code from the Developer Command Prompt, but I have done that.

This is possibly related to #14353 since they are both occurring for me.

If it helps to give you more confidence in my repro steps, I can take a screen recording of all of this and attach the video. Let me know if you'd like me to do that.

Extension version: 1.31.4
VS Code version: Code 1.114.0 (e7fb5e96c0730b9deb70b33781f98e2f35975036, 2026-04-01T09:27:11Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19045
Modes:

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2320 CPU @ 3.00GHz (4 x 2993)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: unavailable_software GPU0: VENDOR= 0x1002, DEVICE=0x677b [AMD Radeon HD 7400 Series], DRIVER_VENDOR=Google, DRIVER_VERSION=8.17.10.1404 GPU1: VENDOR= 0x1414, DEVICE=0x008c [Microsoft Basic Render Driver], DRIVER_VERSION=10.0.19041.5794 Machine model name: Machine model version: direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: disabled_software multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: disabled_off rasterization: disabled_software raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off trees_in_viz: disabled_off video_decode: disabled_software video_encode: disabled_software webgl: unavailable_software webgl2: unavailable_software webgpu: unavailable_software webnn: unavailable_software
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	11.96GB (2.46GB free)
Process Argv	. --crash-reporter-id 446329a1-4bb8-420a-8b52-627c7d2b9460
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

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[sean-mcmanus]

@gknighted Can you try NOT starting VS Code from the developer command prompt? And instead just use the "Apply the Visual Studio developer environment"?

[gknighted]

@gknighted Can you try NOT starting VS Code from the developer command prompt? And instead just use the "Apply the Visual Studio developer environment"?

Sure. Just launching VS Code from the Start Menu, I tried a couple different ways of applying the developer environment but I'm still getting the same result I reported above, not able to build because of the notification "The source code could not be built because the Visual Studio developer environment was not applied."

Here's the ways I tried:

1. Trying to Run Codedirectly after launching VS Code

• Try to Run Code
• 
• Click "Apply Developer Environment"
• 

2. Using "Set Visual Studio Developer Environment"

• 
• 
• Try to Run Code
• 
• Click "Apply Developer Environment"
• 

3. Using the "Set Developer Environment" button on the Welcome page

Same experience as (2).

[sean-mcmanus]

@gknighted Ok, we'll look into it.

[bobbrow]

@gknighted
After you have applied the Developer environment, please do the following:

1. Run the Terminal: Show Environment Contributions command in VS Code
2. Navigate to the ## Extension: ms-vscode.cpptools section
3. Share the list of environment variables that are appearing there.

• Please note there is personal information in the values of the variables. You can delete all the values before sharing them (e.g. everything after the = signs). We should just need to know which variables are being saved to determine what's missing.

[bobbrow]

@gknighted After you have applied the Developer environment, please do the following:

1. Run the Terminal: Show Environment Contributions command in VS Code
2. Navigate to the ## Extension: ms-vscode.cpptools section
3. Share the list of environment variables that are appearing there.

• Please note there is personal information in the values of the variables. You can delete all the values before sharing them (e.g. everything after the = signs). We should just need to know which variables are being saved to determine what's missing.

It is also possible that the problem might be with your Path environment variable and we still can't find cl.exe after updating the build environment. Can you start a new terminal in VS Code and type cl.exe in it to see if Windows is able to find the compiler?

[gknighted]

Thank you for taking a look Bob!

When I type cl.exe into a Terminal pane opened in VS Code, I get:

PS VSCode_CPlusPlus> cl.exe
Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 19.44.35224 for x64
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

usage: cl [ option... ] filename... [ /link linkoption... ]

And attached is the text file that is the result of the "Show Environment Contributions" command.
Environment Contributions.md

Both of these give the same results whether I launch VS Code from the developer command prompt, or whether I launch it from the Start Menu and then run the "Set Visual Studio Developer Environment" command.

Please let me know if there's any other way I can help.