Use Powershell rather than PWSH, control default vcpkg project settings

[jdx-john]

We've noticed in our build logs seemingly for every project in our large solution, the following (I obfuscated actual project name and path):

2021-05-17T11:30:38.9018123Z        Lib:
2021-05-17T11:30:38.9018123Z          All outputs are up-to-date.
2021-05-17T11:30:38.9018123Z          ABC.vcxproj -> <path>ABC.lib
2021-05-17T11:30:38.9954123Z        AppLocalFromInstalled:
2021-05-17T11:30:38.9954123Z          pwsh.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -noprofile -File "C:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\msbuild\applocal.ps1" "<path>ABC.lib" "C:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\msbuild\..\..\..\installed\x86-windows\bin" ".\Release\ABC.tlog\ABC.write.1u.tlog" ".\Release\vcpkg.applocal.log"
2021-05-17T11:30:38.9954123Z          'pwsh.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
2021-05-17T11:30:39.0110123Z          operable program or batch file.
2021-05-17T11:30:39.0110123Z          The command "pwsh.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -noprofile -File "C:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\msbuild\applocal.ps1" "<path>ABC.lib" "C:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\msbuild\..\..\..\installed\x86-windows\bin" ".\Release\ABC.tlog\ABC.write.1u.tlog" ".\Release\vcpkg.applocal.log"" exited with code 9009.
2021-05-17T11:30:39.0266123Z          "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -noprofile -File "C:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\msbuild\applocal.ps1" "<path>ABC.lib" "C:\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\msbuild\..\..\..\installed\x86-windows\bin" ".\Release\ABC.tlog\ABC.write.1u.tlog" ".\Release\vcpkg.applocal.log"

I have a few questions:

1. It seems it is trying to find a local PowerShell then falling back to an installed one, is this a problem and if not can I somehow reduce the amount of logging we get?
2. Why is it running Powershell for every project anyway? I looked at the script file and it's unclear what it's for.
3. We actually only use vcpkg for about 20 projects out of ~200 in the SLN, with custom triplets in a main .prop file. But I see vcpkg stuff going on for every single project. In VS I can see "Use Vcpkg : Yes" in project properties, can I default this to "no" somehow and turn it on only when desired?

  <PropertyGroup Label="Globals">
    <VcpkgTriplet Condition="'$(Platform)'=='Win32'">x86-windows-custom-vcpkg</VcpkgTriplet>
    <VcpkgTriplet Condition="'$(Platform)'=='x64'">x64-windows-custom-vcpkg</VcpkgTriplet>
  </PropertyGroup>

[jdx-john]

Looking further, I realise that about 100 of our projects do not use the props file above, which commands the use of custom triplet. This means that when we started using vcpkg, 100 projects gained a link to x86-windows and have Use Vcpkg = yes.
What I would like ideally is that vcpkg is only used by projects using our .props file. In other words <VcpkgEnabled>false</VcpkgEnabled> would be the VS default. As it is, I have to go add this to 100 projects and I would very much prefer an opt-in approach to vcpkg.

Is this possible?

[PhoebeHui]

AFAIK, the scripts\buildsystems\msbuild\applocal.ps1 helps install dependent dlls to your project, so it executes in each proejct.

For setting VcpkgEnabled, please refer to #16165 (comment).

[jdx-john]

Hi @PhoebeHui thanks for the link - but while there's interesting discussion there I don't see a clear and definitive answer how I can change the default for VcpkgEnabled. It's set to true in the vcpkg props file, one person suggests hacking that file. Another says I can set VS_GLOBAL_VcpkgEnabled to false but where and how do I do this?

Since we have a solution-level .props I simply want to have vcpkg off unless my props file turns it on.

[PhoebeHui]

@jdx-john, sorry for late response!

You can set VcpkgEnabled to false in https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/master/scripts/buildsystems/msbuild/vcpkg.props#L18 by default, then every new msbuild project would not use vcpkg by default. Or you can set 'use vcpkg' to 'No' in your specific project property, but that only works in that project.
If your project is a cmake project, you can passing '-DVS_GLOBAL_VcpkgEnabled=false' to cmake, and the project disable the vcpkg in default.