Is there a way to specify build dependencies for Visual Studio 2003 and 2005?

There are a couple of precautions you need to be aware of for the automatic
dependency generation to work properly in MS Solution files. The attached example demonstrates how this can be done by following the steps below.

The dependencies are generated automatically, if

1a) there is a Lib/DLL project with the target name (the .lib is used, not the .dll of course) being that of what is used on link line of an other project in your solution

1b) there is a Exe project with the target name being that of what is used in a custom build-step of an other project in your solution

2) you don’t use paths in the TARGET variable (use DESTDIR/DLLDESTDIR for that), like TARGET=$(SOME_VARIABLE)/myLib, won’t work

3) if you have a special location for your libs, you specify the -Lmy/library/path and LIBS += mylib, instead of just using LIBS += my/library/path/mylib

4) the leaf projects are created before you generate the solution file. (You can use the recursive flag for qmake to do this, like “qmake -tp vc -r [yourproject.pro]”