Building x64 with Visual Studio C++ 2010 Express

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Apparently, contrary to my fear, you can build x64 applications with the free edition of Visual Studio C++ by Microsoft. You may experience a common issue though:

Error: The "ConfigurationGeneral" rule is missing from the project.

That is the error I got when switching from Win32 to x64 configuration on a Direct3D sample provided in the DirectX SDK. Via a post in the crydev forums I found the problems source and solution though:

Apparently, when you install the VS 2010 SP1 some compiler files from the installed Windows SDK will be removed. Microsoft provided a patch to fix this issue.

With updates having been distributed through windows updates I now wonder which patches for Microsofts software is actually distributed through windows updates, and which not. Is this an exception?

Compiling the D3D sample after installing the patch, compilation succeeded with x64! Nice!

The following linker error of a missing winmm.lib was quickly solved by adding C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Lib\x64 to the library path in the projects settings.