link.exe not found error when building Rust on Windows 11 (MSVC target)

[sharmadevanshu089]

Hey Rustaceans,

I recently switched from Linux to Windows 11 and installed Rust. Cargo commands work fine, but when I try to build a project I get this error:

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.

I installed Visual Studio 2022 and Build Tools 2022 with the C++ workload, but Rust still can’t find link.exe. I even tried using WSL (Ubuntu) and installing the MSVC target there, but it still fails.

I couldn’t locate link.exe to set a path manually. How can I correctly compile Rust for the x86_64 MSVC target on Windows 11?

Any guidance is appreciated!

[Pjdur]

I had this same issue when I installed Rust on Windows 11. I'm not totally sure why it happens, but I think has something to do with the MSVC linker not being found. I also had the Build Tools for Visual Studio installed, but it still didn't work. If you don't specifically need the MSVC toolchain, you can use the windows-gnu toolchain:

rustup toolchain install stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
rustup default stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

Source

[nerditation]

you can run cargo from the "visual studio developer prompt".

did you install rustup before or after visual C++ build tools? normally, when you install rustup, it should be able to find the visual C++ tools from the registry.

since you already have the C++ tools installed, you can try to uninstall then reinstall rustup.

[MOCKBA]

I also use the way. All executable' become bulky after, for example 5MB instead of 800KB on Linux. However a disk space cheap now, and I do not need extra tools.

[Pjdur]

I used to use the windows-gnu toolchain on my C drive, but eventually moved it to an external drive to save space.