For most users today, the Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 with the "Desktop development with C++" workload is the best and most future-proof choice.
To clean up, run:
NMAKE requires specific environment variables to function correctly. The easiest way to run it is through a , which comes pre-configured with these variables. Open the Start Menu . Search for "Developer Command Prompt for VS" and open it. download nmake for windows
: You must select the "Desktop development with C++" workload. Simply installing the IDE is not enough; NMAKE is part of the C++ build toolset.
After installation, NMAKE will be available inside the Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt. You can find this shortcut in the Start Menu under "Visual Studio 2022" -> "Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022". For most users today, the Visual Studio Build
Run the installer and select the "Desktop development with C++" workload.
For very old projects (Windows XP/7), developers sometimes refer to a legacy standalone version (NMAKE 1.5). However, Microsoft's official knowledge base article for this download is no longer active, and using it on modern Windows systems is generally not recommended. Open the Start Menu
Visual Studio includes ARM64 versions of NMAKE. Install the ARM64 build tools workload.
If you require nmake strictly for very old legacy projects (e.g., Visual Studio 6.0 era), modern nmake versions included with VS 2022 are backward compatible.