How to set up a new C++ project in `Visual Studio 2022`

Download and execute the Visual Studio 2022 Installer from the Microsoft website. Then select Visual Studio Community 2022 and click on the Install button. If you already installed Visual Studio 2022, you can move on to step 4.

You will be asked to select the packages you want to install. This tutorial is for C++ but you can select other packages if you like. The basic C++ package you should install is the one called Desktop development with C++ (which is not necessarily for desktop only as I use it to develop for other platforms too).

2.1 I recommend to also go to the Individual components tab and select the Git extension or Git for Windows that comes with it (until VS2019 you had both).

When opening VS for the first time, a menu will let you choose Visual C++ as your default setting. *

A folder will be needed where your development solutions will be placed. I called mine just solutions.

You can then create a new solution and project as follows:

5.1 Open Visual Studio 2022 and click on Create a new project:

5.2 Select Windows Desktop Wizard as project template, then click on Next.

5.3 Then type the Project name (such as MyFirstProject) and the name of the folder in the Location box, then click on Create.

5.4 In the window that pops-up next, select Console Application as the Application type and check the Empty Project checkbox.

5.5 Click on OK and the project and project files will be created automatically as shown below.

After setting up the project, you will be able to add files to it from the samples you find here or browsing the web. If you want to test some code you can write a hello world example as follows:

6.1 Right click on the project name in the Solution Explorer in Visual Studio (at the right or left of the edit area) and in the pop-up menu select Add -> New item

6.2 Select Visual C++ -> C++ file (.cpp) and type the name of the file, such as main.cpp at the name box. Then Click on Add to create the file.

6.3 Type or copy the following code into the main.cpp file:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    printf("Hello world!\n");
    return 0;
}

6.4 Press F7 (or ctrl+shift+b if you didn't set up Visual C++ settings) to build the executable and F5 to execute in debug mode.

If you didn't set up `Visual C++ settings` during install you can do it later by going to menu `Tools` -> `Import and export settings` -> `Reset all settings` and the option will appear again. The screenshot shown is from that window because I had no fresh install of Visual Studio to see the window appear during the first run.