No Target Architecture error with Visual Studio 2010 IDE 64-bit build

Question

I have an application consisting of many dll and exe projects. I'm porting to a 64-bit version and virtually everything works fine. However, I have one exe project that won't build correctly in the 64-bit configuration. The strange thing is that it won't build from the IDE build command. If I open a 64-bit VS command window and build with msbuild, it does build successfully.

I've looked at some of the other similar questions and answers that generally refer to an extra (or missing) windows.h include but it's hard to determine if this is the same thing. I've tried different combinations of includes, but I don't see a clear problem.

I can build the project in the VS IDE as a 32-bit exe I can not build the project in the VS IDE as a 64-bit exe I can build the project in a 64-bit command window as a 64-bit exe

I've got _WIN64 and _AMD64 defined as preprocessor definitions.

If I enable the compiler option to show includes, I see this:

1>  Note: including file: c:\dev\projects\myapp\myproject.root\myproject\stdafx.h
1>  Note: including file:  c:\dev\projects\myapp\myproject.root\myproject\targetver.h
1>  Note: including file:   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\SDKDDKVer.h
1>  Note: including file:  c:\dev\projects\myapp\myproject.root\myproject\resource.h
1>  Note: including file:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\atlmfc\include\atlbase.h
1>  Note: including file:   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\atlmfc\include\atldef.h
1>  Note: including file:    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\atlmfc\include\atlrc.h
1>  Note: including file:    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\errno.h
1>  Note: including file:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\crtdefs.h
1>  Note: including file:      C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\sal.h
1>  Note: including file:       c:\program files (x86)\microsoft visual studio 10.0\vc\include\codeanalysis\sourceannotations.h
1>c:\program files (x86)\microsoft visual studio 10.0\vc\include\codeanalysis\sourceannotations.h(27): error C2371: 'size_t' : redefinition; different basic types
1>          predefined C++ types (compiler internal)(19) : see declaration of 'size_t'
1>  Note: including file:      C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\vadefs.h
1>  Note: including file:    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\malloc.h
1>  Note: including file:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\crtdefs.h
1>  Note: including file:    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\stdlib.h
1>  Note: including file:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\crtdefs.h
1>  Note: including file:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\limits.h
1>  Note: including file:      C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\crtdefs.h
1>  Note: including file:    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\crtdbg.h
1>  Note: including file:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\crtdefs.h
1>  Note: including file:   C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\winsock2.h
1>  Note: including file:    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\windows.h
1>  Note: including file:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\excpt.h
1>  Note: including file:      C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\crtdefs.h
1>  Note: including file:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\stdarg.h
1>  Note: including file:     C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\windef.h
1>  Note: including file:      C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\winnt.h
1>  Note: including file:       C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\ctype.h
1>  Note: including file:        C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include\crtdefs.h
1>  Note: including file:       C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\specstrings.h
1>  Note: including file:        c:\program files (x86)\microsoft sdks\windows\v7.0a\include\sal_supp.h
1>  Note: including file:        c:\program files (x86)\microsoft sdks\windows\v7.0a\include\specstrings_supp.h
1>  Note: including file:        C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\specstrings_strict.h
1>  Note: including file:         C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\specstrings_undef.h
1>  Note: including file:        C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\driverspecs.h
1>  Note: including file:         c:\program files (x86)\microsoft sdks\windows\v7.0a\include\sdv_driverspecs.h
1>  Note: including file:       C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\kernelspecs.h
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\include\winnt.h(135): fatal error C1189: #error :  "No Target Architecture"

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I think I've got the answer. I compared my project settings to a new, empty project that I created. The VC++ Directories entry for Executable Directories was different than mine.

The default directories started with this: $(VCInstallDir)bin\x86_amd64;

My existing project did not have that. I added it to my project for the 64-bit platform debug and release configurations, and I can build the 64-bit version now. And I can still build the 32-bit version as well.

I'm assuming that directory is where the 64-bit compiler and linker reside. If that's right, the error "No target architecture" seems like a strange error message to give for that condition.