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Ninja generator is used instead of Visual Studio 16 2019

See original GitHub issue

Brief Issue Summary

When I select the kit “Visual Studio Community 2019 Release - amd64”, vscode-cmake-tools is passing ‘-G Ninja’ to cmake instead of ‘-G “Visual Studio 16 2019” -A x64’.

My cmake-tools-kit.json file contains the entry:

  {
    "name": "Visual Studio Community 2019 Release - amd64",
    "visualStudio": "da769ae6",
    "visualStudioArchitecture": "amd64",
    "preferredGenerator": {
      "name": "Visual Studio 16 2019",
      "platform": "x64"
    }
  },

What is strange is that I get the correct behavior when I select “Visual Studio Community 2017 Release - amd64” (in that case I can see ‘-G “Visual Studio 15 2017” -A x64’ passed to cmake, which is correct). For this one the entry is:

  {
    "name": "Visual Studio Community 2017 Release - amd64",
    "visualStudio": "05246a08",
    "visualStudioArchitecture": "amd64",
    "preferredGenerator": {
      "name": "Visual Studio 15 2017",
      "platform": "x64"
    }
  },

that seems pretty similar to the one for VS 2019. So I don’t know how vscode-cmake-tools interprets the file cmake-tools-kits.json, but it seems that it does treat both cases in the same way.

Expected:

“CMake: Select a Kit” command
Choose “Visual Studio Community 2019 Release - amd64”
“CMake: Configure” command
cmake should be called with option ‘-G “Visual Studio 16 2019” -A x64’

Apparent Behavior:

“CMake: Select a Kit” command
Choose “Visual Studio Community 2019 Release - amd64”
“CMake: Configure” command
cmake is called with option ‘-G Ninja’

CMake Tools Log

[main] Configuring folder: gltf-viewer-tutorial-git 
[proc] Executing command: C:\Users\laure\scoop\shims\cmake.EXE --no-warn-unused-cli -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS:BOOL=TRUE -Hd:/projects/opengl_tds/gltf-viewer/gltf-viewer-tutorial-git -Bd:/projects/opengl_tds/gltf-viewer/build-gltf-viewer-tutorial -G Ninja
[cmake] Not searching for unused variables given on the command line.
[cmake] -- The C compiler identification is MSVC 19.23.28106.4
[cmake] -- The CXX compiler identification is MSVC 19.23.28106.4
[cmake] -- Check for working C compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.23.28105/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe
[cmake] -- Check for working C compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.23.28105/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe -- works
[cmake] -- Detecting C compiler ABI info
[cmake] -- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
[cmake] -- Detecting C compile features
[cmake] -- Detecting C compile features - done
[cmake] -- Check for working CXX compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.23.28105/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe
[cmake] -- Check for working CXX compiler: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.23.28105/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe -- works
[cmake] -- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
[cmake] -- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
[cmake] -- Detecting CXX compile features
[cmake] -- Detecting CXX compile features - done
[cmake] -- Looking for pthread.h
[cmake] -- Looking for pthread.h - not found
[cmake] -- Found Threads: TRUE  
[cmake] -- Using Win32 for window creation
[cmake] -- Found OpenGL: opengl32   
[cmake] -- Configuring done
[cmake] -- Generating done
[cmake] -- Build files have been written to: D:/projects/opengl_tds/gltf-viewer/build-gltf-viewer-tutorial