A question I keep receiving is how to use Visual Studio 2013 (or 2012) with the DirectX 11 (June 2010) SDK, so DX can be used on apps outside the Windows Store framework.

So, I decided to post a quick solution on this.

Luckily, it’s very simple.

What we will do is to first make sure the DX SDK is installed, then create a new VS 2013 project and set the right paths.

I) Install the DirectX 11 (June 2010)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6812

II) Create a new empty Visual C++ project

III) Set the proper directories/paths in Project Properties
Right click the project and select properties, and the project properties window will pop up.

First of all, make sure the Configuration is set to All Configurations:

Now, select VC++ Directories from the list:

The last thing we need to do is to set the Include directory, the Libraries directory and optionally the executables directory:

EXE: $(DXSDK_DIR)Utilities\bin\x86
Inc: $(DXSDK_DIR)Include
Lib: $(DXSDK_DIR)Lib\x86;$(LibraryPath)

This is done by clicking the dropdown arrow on the end of the text fields and clicking edit:

In the popup, click the right side of the text box to set the path, or paste in the path above:

Do this for the Executables Directories, the Include Directories and the Library Directories properties.

Good luck and enjoy DirectX 11 development in Visual Studio 2013 !