The mex search tool is looking for wrong SDK

I've been trying to get MatLab 2015b to work with VS 2015 so that we can run some exotic dll's for a research project I'm working on. For some reason, mex keeps looking for the windows SDK 7.1 instead of 8.1. So naturally mex isn't finding my compiler. I can't figure out how to get them to talk to each other. I've included the exact error below, along with the verbose output. I need to somehow tell matlab to search for SDK 8.1.

• I'm using windows 8.1
• Both Matlab and VS have recently been reinstalled but with no effect

>>mex -setup -v
Verbose mode is on.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2011 with Microsoft SDK 7.1 (C)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER12' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2011 with Microsoft SDK 7.1 (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2011 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (C)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER12' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2011 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2011 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (C)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER12' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2011 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2013 with Microsoft SDK 7.1' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER14' ...No.
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER13' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2013 with Microsoft SDK 7.1'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2013 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (C)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER14' ...No.
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER13' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2013 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2013 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 (C)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER14' ...No.
... Looking for environment variable 'ICPP_COMPILER13' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Intel C++ Composer XE 2013 with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler (C)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'MW_MINGW64_LOC' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'MinGW64 Compiler (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 (C)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'VS90COMNTOOLS' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 (C)' ...
... Looking for environment variable 'VS100COMNTOOLS' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 (C)' ...
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 11.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 11.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 11.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 11.0 ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Professional (C)' ...
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 12.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 12.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 12.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 12.0 ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Professional (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Professional (C)' ...
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 14.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 14.0 ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7' 14.0 ...Yes ('C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\').
... Looking for file 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\bin\amd64\cl.exe' ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Professional (C)'.
... Looking for compiler 'Microsoft Windows SDK 7.1 (C)' ...
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1' InstallationFolder ...No.
... Looking for registry setting 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1' InstallationFolder ...No.
Did not find installed compiler 'Microsoft Windows SDK 7.1 (C)'.

Error using mex
No supported compiler or SDK was found. You can install the freely available MinGW-w64 C/C++ compiler; see
Install MinGW-w64 Compiler. For more options, see 
http://www.mathworks.com/support/compilers/R2015b/win64.html.

[Geoff Hayes]

Susan - this is similar to your previous question at http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/248855-mex-will-not-find-visual-basic and so the problem isn't that the wrong SDK is being looked for, it is just that your PC does not have a supported compiler.

See http://www.mathworks.com/support/compilers/R2015b/index.html for a list of compilers that are supported for your version of MATLAB and your OS.

You may want to contact The Mathworks directly to determine if there is a work around.

[Esha Bhargava]

You can try using mingw instead.

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_external/install-mingw-support-package.html