I would like my nmake output to go to a particular directory.
The short bit is that there isn't such a thing as Make and configure do two different things. The configure is what creates a Makefile, and a Makefile is what actually contains the compiler commands to build the software. Together they create what is called a build system. To specify the target directory, you'll need to review what creates that makefile for you. However, if you do not generate a Makefile, it is likely that there is a variable which you can override with your target directory, something like:nmake DESTDIR="Path"
With your added comment regarding your file, if it's set-up like this project, then you'll can use nmake PREFIX="Path"