February 15, 2026
Escape the 50GB boss fight
I Fixed Windows Native Development
Tiny tool takes on Windows' 50GB build boss; devs cheer, purists say 'just install LTSC'
TLDR: A dev released msvcup to install the Windows compiler quickly without the Visual Studio maze. Commenters split between cheering the simpler setup and insisting LTSC build tools already solve it, with jokes and jabs highlighting a culture clash over how Windows development should feel.
Windows devs just got a lifeline: an open-source tool called msvcup that promises to skip the infamous Visual Studio checkbox maze and install only the actual compiler fast. The author mocks the current ritual—waiting hours for a 20GB install to build a tiny app—and wants versioned, clean, undoable installs.
Commenters lit up: criemen shouted “This is amazing,” then flexed a corporate hack where they rip the toolchain off a GitHub runner and feed it into Bazel like a snack. Translation: people are desperate to stop playing unpaid tech support for the Visual Studio Installer.
Of course, drama follows. dgxyz waved a minimalist flag: just grab the long-term stable (LTSC) build tools and run the “cl” command, no frills—cue the eternal “real developers use Vim” meme. reactordev dropped a spicy “Microslop” jab, while jen20 called it a “serious quality of life improvement.” Then pjmlp stirred culture-war soup: stop looking at Windows through “UNIX glasses,” the real headache is Microsoft’s app frameworks like WinUI.
Between Boromir memes and “choose-your-own-adventure” installer jokes, the mood splits: one camp wants a modern, package-like toolchain; the other shrugs, saying Windows already has paths if you know the secret menu. Either way, msvcup turned a 50GB boss battle into a quick side quest—and the comment section into a cage match.
Key Points
- •The article critiques listing “Visual Studio” as a dependency for Windows native projects due to complex, error-prone setup via the Visual Studio Installer.
- •It highlights that Visual Studio conflates editor, compiler, and SDK, making component selection difficult and leading to failures if specific items (e.g., SDK versions, Spectre libs) are missed.
- •Common pain points include long downloads, opaque installations, version drift across teammates, and incomplete uninstalls that leave residual services.
- •Command-line compilation is complicated by reliance on the Developer Command Prompt and vcvarsall.bat, which modify environment variables.
- •The author introduces “msvcup,” an open-source CLI that installs the MSVC toolchain and Windows SDK in minutes, placing each version in isolated directories and supporting cross-compilation to/from ARM.