The compilation of a C ++ program involves three steps: Preprocessing: the preprocessor takes a C ++ source code file and deals with the #include s, #define s and other preprocessor directives. The output of this step is a "pure" C ++ file without pre-processor directives. Compilation: the compiler takes the pre-processor's output and produces an object file from it. Linking: the linker takes the object files produced by the compiler and produces either a library or an executable file ... Just use g++ -v or gcc -v which will give you your compiler version. You can also go to your windows settings, click on "Apps" go to the search bar and search up c ++ scroll down to the last item, and click on it. The compilerPath and intelliSenseMode variables serve the purpose of configuring the VSCode editor to provide compilation and IntelliSense services respectively. compilerPath Because VSCode isn't a full IDE by itself, it doesn't ship with the compiler it needs to offer the compilation service. Therefore, it needs to be pointed in the direction of a valid C ++ compiler . That is the purpose of the compilerPath variable. Testing whether or not the path you provided is correct is easy. Copy and ... it couldn't find any C / C ++ compiler in your PATH environment it couldn't find a CC environment variable defined with the full path to a compiler It was defaulting to nmake. Now here comes the problem: it does remember your implicit generator/ compiler choice in it's variable cache (see CMAKE_GENERATOR in CMakeCache.txt).
