title: Good techniques to use Makefiles in VisualStudio?
body: <p>I know the ideal way to build projects is without requiring IDE based project files, since it theoretically causes all sort of trouble with automation and what not. But I've yet to work on a project that compiles on Windows that doesn't depend on the VisualStudio project (Ok, obviously some Open Source stuff gets done with Cygwin, but I'm being general here).</p>
  
  <p>On the other hand if we just use VS to run a makefile, we loose all the benefits of the compile options window, and it becomes a pain to maintain the external makefile.</p>
  
  <p>So how do people that use VS actually handle external makefiles? I have yet to find a painless system to do this...</p>
  
  <p>Or in reality most people don't do this, although its preached as good practice?</p>