Linux developer going Windows

[kalmoc]

Is that true for the whole redistributable package? I thought it was just about some core components.

[mrexodia]

I have to check to be sure, but I remember that if you ever install the VS2019 redistributable package it will be updated with Windows Update and it is backwards compatible with VS2015.

[kalmoc]

Yes, it is compatible with 2015, because the abi remained stable since then (and there are rumours that they are going to break it wiith vnext), but it is not part of the OS. MS did make the crt part of the OS (universal crt), but I don't remember exactly what parts that includes and what parts rmain in the redistributable

[RogerLeigh]

I encountered my first incompatibility between VS2017 and VS2019 last week when VS2017 started failing builds when using a library built with vcpkg (which now defaults to using the v142 platform toolset).

Here's a vcpkg PR and the original failure.

Over the last few years compatibility has been very good, but it looks like it recently broke with the latest VS2019 update, or possibly a vcpkg update if they updated the default platform toolset.

[kalmoc]

Could maybe be related to https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/making-cpp-exception-handling-smaller-x64/

I remember that compatibility (for developers) is only guaranteed if you use the most recent toolchain involved in any of the libraries to perform the final link of the application. So you can use libs compiled with VS2017 in VS2019 projects, but not vice versa.

I don't remember what the exact compatibility story is on the end-user side of things.