HOW-TO: Set Up the EDK2's Windows-Hosted UEFI Environment With Visual Studio 2012

This article shows how to set up the environment for the Widows-hosted UEFI (aka NT32) in the environment provided by EDK2.
This article assumes that you have Visual Studio 2012 installed and that EDK2 has been downloaded to C:\sourcecode\edk2.
If you would like to create the environment in Visual Studio 2010, please click here.
If you would like to create the environment in Visual Studio 2008, please click here.

Create New Visual Studio Project

These steps will set up Visual Studio 2012 so that it can build the Windows-hosted (NT32) environment.

1. Select File -> New Project.

2. Select the "Visual C++" category and select "MakeFile Project." Enter the name as "NT32"
press "OK."










3.The MakeFile Project Wizard will pop up. Click "Finish."












4. The project should appear in the Solution Explorer.
















5. Select the project by right-clicking on the name, then select "Properties" from the right-click menu.

6. Select the category "Configuration Properties", then select "NMake."











7. Under "General", select "Build Command Line." To the far right, a drop down arrow will appear. Click the arrow, then click "<Edit...>"










8. A separate editor box will open. In the box, write the following text, then press "OK."

cd /D c:\sourcecode\edk2
set WORKSPACE=c:\sourcecode\edk2
call edksetup.bat --nt32
build









9. In the "Rebuild All Command Line" editor box, write the following text, then press "OK."

cd /D c:\sourcecode\edk2
set WORKSPACE=c:\sourcecode\edk2
call edksetup.bat --nt32
build clean
build








10. In the "Clean Command Line" editor box, enter the following text, then press "OK."

cd /D c:\sourcecode\edk2
set WORKSPACE=c:\sourcecode\edk2
call edksetup.bat --nt32
build clean

 11. Go to the category "Debugging."











12. Select "Command", and under the drop-down arrow menu, select "<Edit...>" then type the following text before pressing "OK."

c:\sourcecode\edk2\Build\NT32IA32\DEBUG_VS2012x86\IA32\SecMain.exe

13. Select "Work Directory," and in the drop-down arrow menu, select "<Edit...>", then type the following text before pressing "OK."

c:\sourcecode\edk2\Build\NT32IA32\DEBUG_VS2012x86\IA32

14. Press "OK."

15. At the location c:\sourcecode\edk2\BaseTools\Conf, there are two files: target.template and tools_def.template. Copy both files.








16. Paste the files to c:\sourcecode\edk2\Conf and change both files into .txt files.









17. Once you have moved these two files, open target.txt. Find the line that begins with  After TOOL_CHAIN_TAG, the line reads MYTOOLS. Replace MYTOOLS with VS2012x86 and save the file.
TOOL_CHAIN_TAG.

Launching the Windows-Hosted Environment

1. Go to Build -> Build Solution







2. Wait for the build to finish. The text shown to the right should be the what is displayed in the output box when it is finished.




3. Press F5. When a pop-up box appears, press "No."

At this point, at least two windows should open: the debug output console window and then the graphics output window.

The graphics output window will show a fake logo and a progress bar.












The window will then boot into the built-in EFI shell.