Notes On Visual Studio Express For Windows

Installation, Configuration, and Compilation

Visual Studio Express is a free compiler suite available from Microsoft. These instructions describe using the suite under Windows. Note that Visual Studio Express is not supported by Wine. Developers needing a Microsoft compiler suite under Wine should try Visual Studio 6 under Wine.

Installation

Simply follow the instructions from Microsoft to install Visual Studio Express.

Configuration

Details describing the cl command line compiler configuration are available at Building on the Command Line.

For frequent use , edit the batch script used to set the Windows command line environment to include the path to the freshly installed SDK. For my installation I updated PATH, INCLUDE, and LIB to look like:

@set PATH=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\BIN;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\bin;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\VCPackages;%PATH%

@set INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\INCLUDE;"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include";%INCLUDE%

@set LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\lib;"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Lib";%LIB

Compilation

Command line used for compiling wine applications is:

cl -DSTANDALONE -D_X86_ -wd4496 test_name.c required_lib01.lib required_lib02.lib ...

Common libs to link in include: ale32.lib, shlw.lib, and bits.lib.

Errors

Symptom:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winnt.h(3857) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'PCONTEXT'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winnt.h(3858) : error C2059: syntax error : '}'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winnt.h(8319) : error C2146: syntax error : missing ')' before identifier 'ContextRecord'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winnt.h(8319) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'ContextRecord'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winnt.h(8319) : error C2059: syntax error : ';'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winnt.h(8320) : error C2059: syntax error : ')'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(779) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'LPCONTEXT'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(779) : error C2059: syntax error : ';'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(781) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'LPEXCEPTION_POINTERS'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(781) : error C2059: syntax error : ';'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(3155) : error C2146: syntax error : missing ')' before identifier 'lpContex t'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(3155) : error C2081: 'LPCONTEXT' : name in formal parameter list illegal
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(3155) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'lpContext'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(3155) : error C2059: syntax error : ';'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(3156) : error C2059: syntax error : ')'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(3163) : error C2143: syntax error : missing ')' before '*'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(3163) : error C2143: syntax error : missing '{' before '*'
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Include\winbase.h(3164) : error C2059: syntax error : ')'

Solution:

Add -D_X86 to your build.

General Advice

Environment Variables

Sadly, the shell provided by Windows is not Bash. Environment variables are accessed using the %var% syntax. For example, updating the include path used by your compiler would take the form:

set INCLUDE="path_to_include";%INCLUDE%

A handy path to include for development is the bin directory of the SDK:

set PATH=%PATH%;"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\Bin"

Compilation Problems

Unresolved symbols are a good sign of missing libraries. Documentation for the function at MSDN includes the required libraries under the "Requirements" listing.

Registry

You really should not manually edit the registry to remove a service. Rather use a tool such as svcconfig (MSDN example of a service configuration program) for this task. Trust me.