Install integration
To use the Manifest Maker Visual Studio 2015 integration with C++ projects you first need to install the Visual Studio integration option. This is for C++ projects, you do not need this option for .Net or other projects. If you do not have Visual Studio C++ component installed, the Visual Studio selection below will not be available:
Setup installs a number of sxs32*.* files in the Build Customizations folder:
Load customizations
The next step is to load Visual Studio 2015 Build Customizations for Manifest Maker. Right-click the project file in your Visual Studio 2015 solution and select Build Dependencies / Build Customizations....
From the subsequent dialog select one or both of sxs32com and sxs32vs10.
The sxs32com customization builds COM manifests and the sxs32vs10 customization builds REF-manifests (DLL and EXE).
When you open the example VS2015 project included with Manifest Maker you will see two new elements in the project properties tree:
The Side-by-Side Manifest element is added by the sxs32vs10 customization and the Size-by-Side COM Manifest is added by the sxs32com customization.
The Side-by-Side Manifest customization expects a Manifest Maker project file (*.sxs32mm) in the Visual Studio project and will build a REF-manifest using that project and the project's output module. If there is no *.sxs32mm file in the project, Visual Studio will not display this element in properties. This is standard Visual Studio 2015 behavior.
The Side-by-Side COM Manifest customization defaults to Build type: none which means that the COM manifest will not be built. You need to explicitly switch it to /com as shown above to build the COM manifest.
Continue to Example Visual Studio 2015 project...