Problem with finding Visual Studio PATH/LIB files

Question

I am using some application (PSSE-Environment Manager) which requires to interact with Visual Studio version 2015 to compile Fortran code into .dll folder.

When I run the application to perform the compilation, I get the following message:

>  Installed Visual Studio versions:
>     14.0 (VS 2015), 14.0 (VS 2015)
> 
>  [32 bit] PATH/LIB files not found for Visual Studio 14.0 (VS 2015):
>      link.exe
>      mt.exe
>      rc.exe
>      rcdll.dll
>      vc.lib
>      kernel32.lib
> 
>  [64 bit] PATH/LIB files not found for Visual Studio 14.0 (VS 2015):
>      link.exe
>      mt.exe
>      rc.exe
>      rcdll.dll
>      vc.lib
>      kernel32.lib

What could have gone wrong? Does anyone know where can I find the listed .exe and .lib folders? And what are they used for? And why weren't they found? And are they installed by default with Visual Studio or do I need an additional package to install them?

Answer 1

I'm using VS 2015 shell and XE Composer 2019. Installing Visual C++ Build Tools did the trick: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/#build-tools-for-visual-studio-2019

It seems the missing link was the build tools (even though we are using fortran compiler and not C++ ), as Python requires the build tools to work with PSSE.