Due to the strong interest in my previous follow-up, I'm following it up with a more complete implementation of the support required for CMake scenario #1, installing configuration files during "b2 install" such that subsequent "find_package" calls work (assuming a suitably set CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH). You can find it in branch "feature/install-cmake-config" in the superproject (boostorg/boost). In other words, git clone --recursive --depth 64 -b feature/install-cmake-config https://githib.com/boostorg/boost bootstrap b2 headers b2 install cmake//install variant=debug,release link=static,shared runtime-link=static,shared This doesn't yet support installation with more than one toolset, and I'm sure that some libraries don't work, but a simple test using Filesystem and ProgramOptions does. /// CMakeLists.txt: /// cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.5) project(cmake_demo CXX) list(APPEND CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH C:/Boost) find_package(boost_filesystem 1.63.0) find_package(boost_program_options 1.63.0) # disable autolink globally # could also do it per-target add_definitions(-DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB=1) # sample program add_executable(cmake_demo cmake_demo.cpp) target_link_libraries(cmake_demo boost::filesystem boost::program_options) /// cmake_demo.cpp: /// #include <boost/filesystem.hpp> #include <boost/program_options.hpp> #include <cerrno> #include <iostream> namespace fs = boost::filesystem; namespace po = boost::program_options; int main( int argc, char const* argv[] ) { po::options_description desc( "Allowed options" ); desc.add_options() ( "help,h", "produce help message" ) ( "path,p", po::value<std::string>(), "set initial path" ) ; po::variables_map vm; try { po::store( po::parse_command_line( argc, argv, desc ), vm ); po::notify( vm ); } catch( std::exception const & x ) { std::cerr << "Error: " << x.what() << std::endl; return 1; } if( vm.count( "help" ) ) { std::cout << desc << std::endl; return 1; } fs::path p = fs::current_path(); if( vm.count( "path" ) ) { p = vm[ "path" ].as<std::string>(); } std::cout << p << std::endl; }