No devenv file in Microsoft visual Express 10

I had an issue that needed me to edit devenv.exe.config which doesn't exist in VCExpress and learned in the answer that the name of the exe (and of course it's matching .config file) depends on the version of Visual Studio.

In the "complete" versions of VS such as VSPro the executable you're looking for is indeed devenv.exe but in Express it's vcexpress.exe (or the equivalent for your Express version eg vbexpress.exe for Visual Basic Express etc) so it's not so much that Express doesn't include devenv.exe but that it's called something else and presumably not all command line options under devenv.exe will be available or perform the same as v*express.exe.


Have you ever tried MSBuild? MSDN now recommands using MSBuild instead of devenv. MSBuild seems to come along with VC Express at no cost.

To build a solution with configuration Debug|Win32 using MSBuild:

msbuild xxx.sln /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=Win32

More detailed MSBuild usage is available on MSDN.