compiler-errorsinstallationrustlinker-errorsbuild-tools

Unable to compile Rust hello world on Windows: linker link.exe not found

I have installed Rust on windows from Rust installation page. After installation I tried running the "hello world" program but got the following error.

>cargo run

Error

Compiling helloworld v0.1.0 (C:\Users\DELL\helloworld)

error: linker `link.exe` not found
note: The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2)
note: the msvc targets depend on the msvc linker but `link.exe` was not found
note: please ensure that VS 2013, VS 2015 or VS 2017 was installed with the Visual C++ option
error: aborting due to previous error
error: Could not compile `helloworld`.

To learn more, run the command again with --verbose.

Code:

fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world!");
}
Solution

  • I downloaded and installed the Build Tools for Visual Studio 2019. During installation I selected the C++ tools. It downloaded almost 5GB of data. I restarted the machine after installation and compiling the code worked fine:

    > cargo run
Compiling helloworld v0.1.0 (C:\Users\DELL\helloworld)
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 12.05s
  Running `target\debug\helloworld.exe`
Hello, world!