Re: Visual C++ 2005 on NT 4.0 SP6a
"William DePalo [MVP VC++]" <willd.no.spam@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:exvCulXEHHA.3524@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl
"John Carson" <jcarson_n_o_sp_am_@netspace.net.au> wrote in message
news:uYa7lKREHHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
2. Can I create applications for NT 4.0 SP6a with Visual Studio C++
2005?
Yes, that's a possibility.
Not according to this for VC++:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235435(VS.80).aspx
There appear to be ways to get around this --- static linking or
rebuilding
the CRT (not for the faint-hearted).
http://blog.kalmbachnet.de/?postid=53
http://www.codeproject.com/cpp/vcredists_x86.asp
Wow! I've always preferred to link statically despite the bloat in
order to stay out of DLL hell. Does that fail in some cases with
VS2005?
I am guided in these matters by what Jochen has written. I haven't gone into
it myself (up until about a year ago, I had all the Windows versions since
Win 95 available for testing, but currently only have XP available).
You can't statically link to everything of course (e.g., to kernel32.dll),
so you could get into trouble if something you *do* statically link to calls
a function that you *cannot* statically link to and which isn't available on
NT 4.
The first CodeProject article by Jochen that I linked to gives examples.
Under the "Statically linking the executables" heading, he writes:
"If you're careful enough, you can even get the application to run on
Windows NT! The pieces of the CRT that require InterlockedCompareExchange
and GetLongPathNameW get discarded out of your final executable, and thus
your app can run on Windows NT. In order for this to happen, you have to be
careful about which C functions you call (no iostream, no locale, no
algorithm), and you'll probably have to upgrade to the latest service pack
for Windows NT (plus all post service pack patches).
"Using this method is not much better than rebuilding the CRTs. Once again,
if your application consists of several DLLs where each DLL expects STL/CRT
parameters, you will get serious bugs until you rebuild by dynamically
linking the CRT."
--
John Carson