1281432 - Support automatically downloading and installing Visual C++ Community Edition in `mach bootstrap` on Windows

Status: NEW

(Firefox Build System :: Bootstrap Configuration, defect)

Description

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

I ran into this blog post while looking for some other info:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2015/07/24/setup-changes-in-visual-studio-2015-affecting-c-developers/

Notably, it gives an installer commandline for unattended installation of the C++ parts of Visual Studio:
vs_enterprise.exe /q /norestart /InstallSelectableItems NativeLanguageSupport_Group

Given the work Nathan did in bug 1275437 to enable bootstrapping in an msys2 environment, it'd be interesting to see if we could automatically download and install Visual C++ Community Edition as part of the bootstrap process if the user doesn't already have Visual C++ installed.

Comment 1

[Nathan Hakkakzadeh [:Nat]]

If I'm understanding this correctly, Visual Studio 2015 needs to already be installed to install the C++ parts? If so, this still requires Windows devs to install Visual Studio by themselves (albeit they don't have to open up the custom prompt).

Comment 2

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

I don't think so, no. I believe that commandline is intended to install MSVC from scratch in an unattended manner. (I haven't tried it in a clean environment though.)