Visual Studio 2013 error MS8020 Build tools v140 cannot be found

Question

I had previously been using VS2013 express without issue, but suddenly it began crashing whenever I tried edit the code while it ran existing code fine.

I tried uninstalling and switching over to VS2015, but it was crashing as well and wasn't compatible with some of my code. So I uninstalled VS2015 and reinstalled VS2013.

The new issue is whenever I try to build a solution it gives the error "MS8020".

The full error message is seen below

Error 1 error MSB8020: The build tools for v140 (Platform Toolset = 'v140') cannot be found. To build using the v140 build tools, please install v140 build tools. Alternatively, you may upgrade to the current Visual Studio tools by selecting the Project menu or right-click the solution, and then selecting "Upgrade Solution...". C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V120\Microsoft.Cpp.Platform.targets 64 5 Bevan

Gnosis

I found a solution for the same issue and posted an answer in SO. please refer #33155196 – Ketubim

Answer 1

That's the platform toolset for VS2015. You uninstalled it, therefore it is no longer available.

To change your Platform Toolset:

1. Right click your project, go to Properties.
2. Under Configuration Properties, go to General.
3. Change your Platform Toolset to one of the available ones.

Wares

Thanks that worked. After getting it to start the build process now it shows some errors. When I double click the error to try to fix it Visual studio crashes and restarts. This issue was why I reinstalled to begin with. Any idea on why its doing this? – Gnosis

If after setting the platform toolset to vc120 the problem still exists, what can be the reason? – Moats

Does anyone have a fix for this if you are not using Visual Studio. Like if you are just running an app via npm and you get the error that you are using V110 but need to be on V140. How do you change this. I have never even opened up the Visual Studio app. – Montgolfier

This works nicely for c++ projects that were targeting 2015 to be build-able in 2013 when your available toolset is "what you have on the machine" and UPGRADE YOUR PROJECT is not visible since it is a downgrade I guess. Those people /also/ using cmake must consider gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/commit/… and thus a never version of CMake is required (3.8ish?). Also switching DEBUG / RELEASE will require you to configure each separately – Rodina

Answer 2

@bku_drytt's solution didn't do it for me.

I solved it by additionally changing every occurence of 14.0 to 12.0 and v140 to v120 manually in the .vcxproj files.

Then it compiled!

Reveal