does visual studio 2022 support building a 2019 version of chromium?

[Shailan Patel]

as the title, is it possible to build a 2019 version of chromium on visual studio 2022 as opposed to using visual studio 2017/2019? if so, do you know whether any changes are needed ?

[Bruce Dawson]

I don't know what you mean by a "2019 version of Chromium on Visual Studio 2022" - that seems contradictory.

Chromium builds using the clang-cl compiler and lld-link linker so in fact it uses only modest amounts of Visual Studio. It would probably be possible to build Chromium using a machine that only had VS 2019 installed rather than having VS 2022 installed but this isn't supported, something wouldn't work, and I don't know what that would be.

Maybe you can tell us what you are trying to achieve.

[Bruce Dawson]

Ah - I think I understand. You want to know if older versions of Chromium - that nominally build with VS 2019 - could be built with VS 2022. The only way to know for sure is to try. It depends how far you go back. The most likely problems you would hit would be mismatches between the output of midl.py and midl.exe, but those can be ignored just by disabling the check for mismatches. I think that there was a several year period where Chromium could be built with VS 2019 or VS 2022.

That said, Microsoft doesn't tend to remove access to old software aggressively. And you could use depot_tools\win_toolchain\package_from_installed.py to create a toolchain package suitable for building old versions of Chromium.

I have tried to build old versions of Chromium before and, even without VS version mismatches, it is common to encounter other issues. The world (including depot_tools) moves on and some work is usually required to build older versions. But, it is generally possible, with a bit of effort to work through the issues.

On Tue, May 2, 2023 at 7:41 PM Shailan Patel <shail...@gmail.com> wrote:

  the reason i ask is because in the future if microsoft decides to remove older versions of VS. do you know whether its more lenient when building linux in this regard?

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Bruce Dawson, he/him

[Bruce Dawson]

In 2022 Chromium was officially supposed to be built with VS 2019. I think that it was possible to build it with VS 2022 at that point, but I'm not sure.

On Wed, May 3, 2023 at 3:54 AM Shailan Patel <shail...@gmail.com> wrote:

can you elaborate what you meant by "  think that there was a several year period where Chromium could be built with VS 2019 or VS 2022." as you've lost me there? im aware that the latest version of chromium needs VS 2022 to be built though.

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Bruce Dawson, he/him

[Shailan Patel]

  the reason i ask is because in the future if microsoft decides to remove older versions of VS. do you know whether its more lenient when building linux in this regard?

On Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 3:15:24 AM UTC+1 Bruce Dawson wrote:

[Shailan Patel]

can you elaborate what you meant by "  think that there was a several year period where Chromium could be built with VS 2019 or VS 2022." as you've lost me there? im aware that the latest version of chromium needs VS 2022 to be built though.