Is there a way to embed a command prompt into the visual studio IDE?

Question

Basically I'm looking for something like the "Visual Studio Command Prompt", but which can be docked as a tab or otherwise moved about like any other Visual Studio panel.

Does such a thing exist?

EDIT: I'm looking for something like PowerConsole but which would let me run msbuild from whithin the IDE.

Answer 1

instead of searching any further: just use the powerconsole and incorporate the settings of the "visual studio command prompt".

the visual studio command prompt is nothing more but:

1. cmd.exe
2. feed with vcvarsall.bat

so, all you have to do is execute vcvarsall.bat and interprete the result of that into your powershell. luckily this can be achieved very easily:

• Scott Hanselmann has setup his powershell prompt escpecially for VC, search the post for "get-batchfile" to get an idea of how to use vcvarsall.bat:

  http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AwesomeVisualStudioCommandPromptAndPowerShellIconsWithOverlays.aspx

• Get-Batchfile originates somewhat from here: http://allen-mack.blogspot.com/2008/03/replace-visual-studio-command-prompt.html

• And SO has something on the same topic:

  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2124753/how-i-can-use-powershell-with-the-visual-studio-2010-command-prompt

this should you get going, no need for cmd.exe, really.