When installing Intel® Visual Fortran Compiler as part of Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016, if a supported version of Microsoft Visual Studio* is not found on the system, a Fortran development environment based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Shell* will be installed. This environment provides the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for editing, building and debugging Fortran programs, as well as Microsoft tools and libraries required for building Fortran applications from the command line.
Installation of the Visual Studio 2013 Shell requires that the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 8.1* be already installed on the system and that it be downloaded directly from Microsoft if needed. When installing Intel Parallel Studio XE, if you are notified that the Windows SDK for Windows 8.1 is not found you should exit the installation, install the SDK from the link below, and then restart the Intel Parallel Studio XE installation.
Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 8.1 Download
The installer gives you the choice of installing directly or downloading the full installer for use on a different system. It will also allow you to choose which sets of features you want installed on a screen that looks like this:
Only the "Windows Software Development Kit" feature is required; you may uncheck the boxes for the other features to save installation space.
Once the Windows SDK is installed, restart the Intel Parallel Studio XE installation.
If you have questions about this, please ask in our User Forum or at Intel® Premier Support.