Jonathan Marler

Jonathan Marler is an independent developer whose open-source utilities focus on streamlining Windows-based build environments; his single published title, msvcup, addresses the friction that C and C++ developers face when they need Microsoft’s compiler and platform headers but want to avoid the multi-gigabyte Visual Studio installer. Instead of pulling an entire IDE, msvcup downloads and isolates the MSVC toolchain and Windows SDK into a lightweight, portable folder, letting CI pipelines, embedded toolchains, or minimalist dev machines bootstrap a compliant compiler in minutes. Typical use cases include automated build servers that must reproduce binaries on a clean image, hobbyists who prefer VS Code or Neovim over the full Visual Studio experience, and cross-compilation setups that only require the libraries and headers rather than the graphical debugger. Because the utility is script-friendly and version-aware, it can pin or upgrade toolsets without touching the registry or existing Visual Studio installations, making it popular in containerized workflows and classroom environments where every saved gigabyte matters. Jonathan Marler’s software is available for free on get.nero.com, with downloads delivered through trusted Windows package sources such as winget, always installing the latest release and allowing batch installation alongside other applications.