Visual Studio 2017 - can't find Visual C++ Windows Forms

Ok, I found a working way to creating Windows Forms in Visual Studio 2017.

  1. Create new CLR Empty Project:

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  1. Add .cpp file for main function.

  2. In project add new item from UI->Windows Forms:

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(If we didn't add main loop before the error will occur)

  1. Now we can add new elements to form from the Toolbox to the left (i spent measurable time looking for that).

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  1. To run application we have to declare this instead of main function:

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Also we need to tell Visual Studio that we are making Windows Application instead of Console Application:

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WinForms designer support for C++/CLI was dropped a long time ago in VS 2012. MS suggests using C# for your WinForms code, and only use C++/CLI if you need to interop with native code.

And if you do end up using C++/CLI for interop, keep that layer as small as possible. It's a second-class citizen in the .NET world and isn't even mentioned in Microsoft's recent post on their language strategy.