`node-gyp build` on Windows always rebuilds the final binary even if no files were changed

Cloned bufferutil, ran npm install and node-gyp rebuild, then running node-gyp build:

PS C:\Users\jake\src\bufferutil> node-gyp build
gyp info it worked if it ends with ok
gyp info using node-gyp@3.5.0
gyp info using node@4.2.6 | win32 | ia32
gyp info spawn C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\msbuild.exe
gyp info spawn args [ 'build/binding.sln',
gyp info spawn args   '/clp:Verbosity=minimal',
gyp info spawn args   '/nologo',
gyp info spawn args   '/p:Configuration=Release;Platform=Win32' ]
Building the projects in this solution one at a time. To enable parallel build, please add the "/m" switch.
     Creating library C:\Users\jake\src\bufferutil\build\Release\bufferutil.lib and object C:\Users\jake\src\bufferutil\build\Release\bufferutil.exp
  Generating code
  Finished generating code
  bufferutil.vcxproj -> C:\Users\jake\src\bufferutil\build\Release\\bufferutil.node
  bufferutil.vcxproj -> C:\Users\jake\src\bufferutil\build\Release\bufferutil.pdb (Full PDB)
gyp info ok

No source files were modified, but it still rebuilds the binaries. On Linux and Mac this would be a no-op as it recognises nothing has changed.

Is this a limitation of gyp itself? Surely msbuild is capable of this. Is there some setting I can put in binding.gyp to override this?

This is an issue because it slows down build scripts with unnecessary rebuilds. We have a fairly big native addon so it adds about 20 seconds.

[joaocgreis]

Fixed by https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/compare/c307b30...386746c (https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/pull/964)

[bnoordhuis]

@joaocgreis Perhaps you can test/review #951 or #964? I think my preference is for the latter.