Port a Project Made with NMAKE to the Development Environment
To open an external makefile in the development environment
From the File menu, click Open Workspace.
The Open Project Workspace dialog box appears.
In the Files of type drop-down list, select All Files (*.*) to display all files.
Select the drive and directory containing the previous makefile.
Select the makefile from the list of files and click OK.
–or–
Double-click the filename in the list.
If the makefile is not one that the development environment recognizes, a message box is displayed offering to create a new project workspace to wrap the external makefile.
Click Yes.
A Platforms dialog box appears. Select all the 32-bit platforms your application supports. You must select at least one platform.
Click OK.
A project is created with one file in it, your makefile, but the project will build and run within the development environment, assuming it is 32-bit compatible. However, to take advantage of wizards and integrated debugging features, it would be better for you to create a new project in the development environment, add your existing files to it, set the compile and link settings to match your old makefile, then build and save the up-to-date project.
You can also generate browser information for an external makefile. See Knowledge Base article Q102326. (Connect to https://www.microsoft.com/kb/ to access Knowledge Base articles. Choose Visual C++ in the Choose a Microsoft product or technology drop-down list. Enter the article number in the Enter a Search Phrase text box, then click Begin Search.)