

Visual Studio 2019 uses Version 17 of the C++ compiler, which is a version of the C++14 standard. In addition, Visual Studio offers support for developing universal Windows apps with features such as UI and media engine integration, gesture input, and much more. Visual Studio also includes a comprehensive suite of tools and services that support modern C++ development, such as C++14, C++17 and C++20, with optional support for C++17 core language features and C++20 core language features. Visual Studio also includes integrated support for Git, Microsoft’s version control system, making it easy to collaborate with others on projects and track changes over time. It includes an advanced source code editor that supports IntelliSense, a powerful debugger, an integrated development environment (IDE) for creating your own projects, comprehensive integration with Windows, and access to a selection of tools for helping you manage and deploy your C++ code. Visual Studio provides a comprehensive set of tools and services to help you write and debug C++ code. That’s because another program may have been installed in the meantime that also relies on those specific libraries.Yes, you can run C++ code in Visual Studio. Although a program will install missing libraries alongside itself, it won’t uninstall those libraries when you uninstall it. That means multiple applications make use of the same installation of standard libraries.

The redistributable libraries are shared. So every one of the entries you see listed were at one time needed by an application you installed on your computer. Whenever you install a new application which requires a new distributable, it will check if that library is already installed.

If they were cumulative the size of the redistributable would balloon over the years and become hard to maintain. That’s because some older libraries will be dropped over time or will change and no longer be compatible with older versions. So newer ones don’t contain all the libraries of the versions that have come before.

The redistributables are also not cumulative.
