Visual studio: change reference paths?

Question

I am trying to build an old C# project in VS Community 2017 and receive the following error:

C:\\Users\\shrout\\source\\repos\\MyFirstNppPlugin\\MyFirstNppPlugin\\DllExport\\NppPlugin.DllExport.targets : warning : Cannot find lib.exe in 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2017\\Community\\Common7\\IDE\\\\..\\..\\VC\\bin'.

• Is there a method by which I can point VS 2017 to a different directory for lib.exe?
• If I create a Community\\VC\\bin directory and put lib.exe into it the build progresses past this point
• The lib.exe file I am using is currently located in C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2017\\Community\\VC\\Tools\\MSVC\\14.12.25827\\bin\\Hostx64\\x64
  • I would prefer to point VS at this directory instead of the one being referenced, but don't know where to make that change.

Extra Info: I am trying to build a sample NotePad++ plugin from the following page:

Sample Plugin from SourceForge

Answer 1

As the error states, the reference is made from the NppPlugin.DllExport.targets file, which in turn is referenced from your project.

Given it's a project file and not a system-wide file, you can simply change the reference path in the .targets file.