Correct, VS commandline calls MSBuild. That seems like an inaccurate description of what's happening: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11932164/what-paramet

Correct, VS commandline calls MSBuild. That seems like an inaccurate description of what's happening: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11932164/what-parameters-does-visual-studio-pass-to-msbuild http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11932164/what-parameters-... They're using MSBuild, they just don't know it. Given the age of projects I've worked on, and that it's unclear whether MSBuild is involved in VS's C++ compilation, I don't think your assumption is correct.