The system cannot find the file specified when running C program

Question

I installed Visual Studio 2010  I wrote a simple code which I m sure is correct but unfortunately  when I run the code  I get the error below   Here is my code    include lt iostream gt  using namespace std  int main        cout  lt  lt  Hello StackOverFlow        return 0      And here is the error      Unable to start program  C  Users Soheil Desktop New folder sam Debug sam exe   The system cannot find the file specified   Would you help me solve the issue  Should I define the project in a specific directory  I ve spent a ton of hours to solve this issue and have not had any success yet

User · Answer

For me  I didn t have my startup project set in Solution Explorer   Go to Solution Explorer on the left of VS  right click your unit test project  and choose  set as startup project    I had just ported my code to a new workspace  and forgot that when I opened the project in VS in the solution there  that I needed to re-set my startup project

User · Answer

Since this thread is one of the top results for that error and has no fix yet  I ll post what I found to fix it  originally found in this thread  Build Failure   quot Unable to start program    The system cannot find the file specificed quot  which lead me to this thread  Error   39 LINK   fatal error LNK1123  failure during conversion to COFF  file invalid or corrupt  39  after installing Visual Studio 2012 Release Preview  Basically all I did is this  Project Properties        - gt  Configuration Properties             - gt  Linker  General                 - gt  Enable Incremental Linking - gt   No   INCREMENTAL NO

User · Answer

I had a same problem and i could fixed it  you should add   C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft SDKs Windows v7 1A Lib x64    for 64 bit system   C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft SDKs Windows v7 1A Lib        for 32 bit system  in property manager-  Linker-  General- Additional library Directories   maybe it can solve the problem of somebody in the future

User · Answer

I know this is an old thread  but for any future visitors  the cause of this error is most likely because you haven t built your project from Build  gt  Build Solution  The reason you re getting this error when you try to run your project is because Visual Studio can t find the executable file that should be produced when you build your project

User · Answer

This is a first step for somebody that is a beginner   Same thing happened to me   Look in the Solution Explorer box to the left  Make sure that there is actually a  cpp file there   You can do the same by looking the  cpp file where the  sln file for the project is stored   If there is not one  then you will get that error   When adding a cpp file you want to use the Add new item icon    top left with a gold star on it  hover over it to see the name   For some reason Ctrl N does not actually add a  cpp file to the project

User · Answer

I know this thread is 1 year old but I hope this helps someone  my problem was that I needed to add        include  stdafx h    to my project  on the first line   this seems to be the case most of the time

User · Answer

Encountered the same issue  after downloading a project  in debug mode  Searched for hours without any luck  Following resolved my problem   Project Properties -  Linker -  Output file -    OutDir   TargetName   TargetExt   It was previously pointing to a folder that MSVS wasn t running from whilst debugging mode   EDIT  soon as I posted this I came across  unable to start  quot program exe quot  the system cannot find the file specified vs2008 which explains the same thing

User · Answer

I have recently not used VS 2010    Does your application really build correctly   To get more control in VS 2010 C   Express  you can check menu item  Expert Settings  under Tools gt Settings to get a Build  menu  After clicking Build- gt Build Solution  or Rebuild   you may verify in Output window  View- gt Outout   if your application is compiling and linking correctly   Sources      http   social msdn microsoft com Forums en-US vsdebug thread e60f9f37-69ad-47f3-b1d3-132aabe68f86 http   cboard cprogramming com cplusplus-programming 135322-error-system-cannot-find-file-specified html   Hope it helps

User · Answer

if vs2010 installed correctly   check file type   cpp   just build it again It will automatically fix     if you are using VS 2010

User · Answer

I got this problem during debug mode and the missing file was from a static library I was using  The problem was solved by using step over instead of step into during debugging

User · Answer

I came across this problem and none of these solution worked 100   In addition to ReturnVoid s answer which suggested the change     Project Properties -  Linker -  Output file -    OutDir   TargetName   TargetExt    I needed to changed     Project Properties -  C C   -  Debug Information Format -   Zi   This field was blank for me  changing the contents to  Zi  or  Z7 or  ZI if those are the formats you want to use  allowed me to debug

User · Answer

As others have mentioned  this is an old thread and even with this thread there tends to be different solutions that worked for different people  The solution that worked for is as follows   Right Click Project Name  gt  Properties Linker  gt  General  Output File  gt    OutDir   TargetName   TargetExt  as indicated by  ReturnVoid Click Apply   For whatever reason this initial correction didn t fix my problem  I m using VS2015 Community to build c   program   If you still get the error message try the following additional steps   Back in Project  gt  Properties  gt  Linker  gt  General  gt  Output File  gt     You ll see the previously entered text in bold  Select Drop Down  gt  Select  inherit from parent or project defaults  Select Apply   Previously bold font is no longer bold  Build  gt  Rebuild  gt  Debug   It doesn t make since to me to require these additional steps in addition to what  ReturnVoid posted but   what works is what works   hope it helps someone else out too  Thanks  ReturnVoid

[c++] "The system cannot find the file specified" when running C++ program

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