[duncans]

Visual Studio uses MSBuild. csproj/vbproj files are MSBuild files. MSBuild will take an SLN file as an argument and do the same as Visual Studio would do with it when you load it and click build.

[Mandatum]

Correct, VS commandline calls MSBuild. They're using MSBuild, they just don't know it.

[O____________O]

Correct, VS commandline calls MSBuild.

That seems like an inaccurate description of what's happening: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11932164/what-parameters-...

They're using MSBuild, they just don't know it.

Given the age of projects I've worked on, and that it's unclear whether MSBuild is involved in VS's C++ compilation, I don't think your assumption is correct.

[Negitivefrags]

Visual Studio changed to using MSBuild for C++ at the time when the project file extension changed from "vcproj" to "vcxproj".

The change was explicitly to make it so that a C++ project file was an MSBuild script.

Visual Studio absolutely uses MSBuild for C++ projects.

[rjblackman]

incorrect, the visual studio solution file has build configuration details that msbuild will not honour (e.g. you can specify certain build order parameters), as I found out recently with a project I took over. (I was wondering why building from the command line with ms build produced different results).