Visual Studio C++ cannot open some headers I didn't deliberately include

Question

today I wanted to start learning C++. However I keep getting these errors:

Cannot open source file "stdio.h"
Cannot open source file "tchar.h"
Cannot open source file "SDKDDKver.h"

However, I even get these in a default empty win32 console project.

OS: windows 10

My default code looks like this:

    // HelloWorld.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
    //

    #include "stdafx.h"


    int main()
    {
        return 0;
    }

The errors are:

Severity    Code    Description Project File    Line    Suppression State
Error (active)      cannot open source file "stdio.h"   HelloWorld  c:\Users\HP\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\HelloWorld\HelloWorld\stdafx.h    10  

Severity    Code    Description Project File    Line    Suppression State
Error (active)      cannot open source file "tchar.h"   HelloWorld  c:\Users\HP\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\HelloWorld\HelloWorld\stdafx.h    11  

Severity    Code    Description Project File    Line    Suppression State
Error (active)      cannot open source file "SDKDDKVer.h"   HelloWorld  c:\Users\HP\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\HelloWorld\HelloWorld\targetver.h 8   

Severity    Code    Description Project File    Line    Suppression State
Error (active)      cannot open source file "stdio.h"   HelloWorld  c:\Users\HP\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\HelloWorld\HelloWorld\stdafx.h    10  

In the OUTPUT window:

1>------ Build started: Project: HelloWorld, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\Platforms\Win32\PlatformToolsets\v140\Toolset.targets(34,5): error MSB8036: The Windows SDK version 8.1 was not found. Install the required version of Windows SDK or change the SDK version in the project property pages or by right-clicking the solution and selecting "Retarget solution".
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

EDIT:

I believe I have C++ installed, cause first when I went to
file > new > project > Visual C++
It would only show me "Install ... for C++", So I installed one of the first options (don't remember which one it was) and after installing it allowed me to create projects.

Answer 1

Check your stdafx.h contents. Headers can be included transitively. In particular, the three ehaders you quote are in the VC++ stdafx.h for new projects. You can simply remove them if you're programming C++.

(It says something about Microsoft's struggle to choose between C and C++ : They don't support C99, but they default to a C header instead of C++. Not even <cstdio> . )