The Microsoft Program Maintenance Utility (NMAKE.EXE) is a command-line tool included with Visual Studio that builds projects based on commands that are contained in a description file.

To use NMAKE, you must run it in a Developer Command Prompt window. A Developer Command Prompt window has the environment variables set for the tools, libraries, and include file paths required to build at the command line. For details on how to open a Developer Command Prompt window, see Use the MSVC toolset from the command line.

Running NMAKE

Contents of a Makefile

Description blocks

Commands in a Makefile

Macros and NMAKE

Inference rules

Dot directives

Makefile preprocessing

Use the MSVC toolset from the command line
Additional MSVC Build Tools
Visual Studio Projects - C++
Debugging in Visual Studio
C/C++ Building Reference