linker `link.exe` not found on Rust(MSVC) windows 11 installation

Question

I know there are tons of similar stackoverflow topics already, but I still can't fix my own case and I need help.

I'm using windows 11, with both 2019 and 2022 Visual Studio Build Tools installed.

PS C:\Users\Username\Development\dogcat> winget list | Select-String "build tools"

Visual Studio Build Tools 2019            Microsoft.VisualStudio.2019.BuildTools    16.11.33                     winget
Visual Studio Build Tools 2022            Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools    17.8.6                       winget

and also have Visual Studio 2022, Visual C++ installed.

PS C:\Users\Username\Development\dogcat> winget list | Select-String "Visual Studio Community"

Visual Studio Community 2022 (2)          Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.Community     17.9.1                       winget

PS C:\Users\Username\Development\dogcat> winget list | Select-String "VCRedist"

Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistrib… Microsoft.VCRedist.2015+.x86              14.38.33135.0
winget
Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistrib… Microsoft.VCRedist.2015+.x64              14.38.33135.0
winget

for Rust compiler, this

PS C:\> winget list | Select-String "Rust"

Rust 1.76 (MSVC 64-bit)                   Rustlang.Rust.MSVC                        1.76.0.0                     winget

I previously tried the same thing using rustup package (from winget) and got the same result.

all via winget. And I'm getting the following error.

PS C:\Users\Username\Development\dogcat> cargo run
   Compiling dogcat v0.1.0 (C:\Users\Username\Development\dogcat)
error: linker `link.exe` not found
  |
  = note: program not found

note: the msvc targets depend on the msvc linker but `link.exe` was not found

note: please ensure that Visual Studio 2017 or later, or Build Tools for Visual Studio were installed with the Visual C++ option.

note: VS Code is a different product, and is not sufficient.

error: could not compile `dogcat` (bin "dogcat") due to 1 previous error

fdfind search for link.exe from root gives me nothing valuable

PS C:\> fd link.exe
Program Files\Rust stable MSVC 1.76\lib\rustlib\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\bin\gcc-ld\lld-link.exe
Program Files\Git\usr\bin\unlink.exe
Program Files\Git\usr\bin\readlink.exe
Program Files\Git\usr\bin\link.exe
Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer\Git\usr\bin\readlink.exe

Also, I went over this Microsoft official page for installing Windows SDK for Windows 11. What am I doing wrong here?

I tried all things written in some GitHub issues and stackoverflows for this error. I even restarted my computer several times (which I think is a waste of time). Still no hope.

Answer 1

I ended up installing C++ Desktop development kit from visual studio installer, which was a hard decision for me. I wanted to manage everything from inside winget, but I guess that's not viable, as long as you are using Windows.

Plus, you shouldn't install Rust(MSVC) package for rust because packages like rustfmt are installed from rustup.