RE: Installing MS Win32 SDK.

  • From: "Graham Hardy" <graham.hardy@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:54:47 -0800

Hi Jaffar - I'm afraid I'm still experiencing the same problems. When I
finish my political science term paper (in other words, when I once again
have time to live), I'm going to try and re-install the program along with
Visual C++, removing as many traces of environment variables as I can, in
hopes that it resolves the problem. But before I do this, I should ask you
(and others) what alleged benefits exist with this Microsoft C++ compiler as
opposed to MinGW or Cygwin. I seem to recall Cygwin had rather restrictive
licensing protocols and also a DLL file that always had to be present (which
seems an undesirable trait for a software developer, especially as it is so
large.) What are your thoughts on this? -Graham.

  _____  

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jaffar
Sent: November 16, 2007 6:06 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Installing MS Win32 SDK.


Hi Graham.  I don't think there should be any significant difference, if any
for the user and system variables.  However, i'll go check and let you know.
Cheers!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Graham  <mailto:graham.hardy@xxxxxxxxx> Hardy 
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 9:46 AM
Subject: RE: Installing MS Win32 SDK.

Correction - It worked once, and now it's back to refusing to find the
include files. However, the directories are still listed in the new order.
Is it significant that there are %INCLUDE% and %LIB% variables for the user
and for the system?
 
Graham.
 

  _____  

From: Graham Hardy [mailto:graham.hardy@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: November 15, 2007 5:10 PM
To: 'programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: RE: Installing MS Win32 SDK.


Hi Jaffar - I did change the order of the include directories, and now
things are compiling. My sole complaint is that it is still creating a
directory called WIN2000_DEBUG, which suggests that it isn't taking into
account my efforts to set it to Windows XP Retail. Now, the documentation
makes it clear enough that the version of Windows for which you compile your
programs is the earliest version on which they can run, but it doesn't
really make a clear distinction between 'Debug' and 'Retail' modes. The only
thing I can think of is that 'Retail' must #define NDEBUG, getting rid of
assert macros, etc., but is this assumption correct?
 
Thanks for your help thus far,
 
Graham.
 


  _____  

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jaffar
Sent: November 14, 2007 10:32 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Installing MS Win32 SDK.


Hi Graham.  Might i ask which OS are you operating in?  In some instances,
the order in which your apps appear in the environment path is critical.
For example, whether your microsoft ide appears before or after your sdk bin
directory may determine if your command line environment will work propperly
or not.  Also, under your system environment, the second item on the list
which is comSpec is critical.  Check if your %system32\cmd.exe% is the only
executable on that list, because other apps that appear there will interfere
with it's opverations.  Cheers!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Graham  <mailto:graham.hardy@xxxxxxxxx> Hardy 
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 1:06 PM
Subject: RE: Installing MS Win32 SDK.

Hi Jaffar - Thanks so much for your highly-detailed tutorial. I have once
again ensured that all the environment variables are set correctly. In fact,
I was working from the command prompt to compile the programs. I do have the
Visual C++ Express installed, but the interface looks terrifying and the
JAWS scripts failed to install properly, so I figured the command prompt
would, at least to get a feel for the thing and build the examples, be
faster. At any rate, I am still getting the same error. I did some further
investigation, and the Win32 API-related include files and libraries are in
the Platform SDK, while the standard-looking C and C++ files are in the
MSVC++ directory. I thought perhaps one was missing from the environment
variable, but they are both there! Have you any thoughts?
 
Graham.
 


  _____  

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jaffar
Sent: November 14, 2007 6:30 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Installing MS Win32 SDK.


Hi Graham.  From experience, i find the setenv.bat doesn't really work.  I
would suggest a combination of 2 approaches that you can try, then let us
know if they work.
1.  Set your environment path by hand.
Go to your desktop and choose your my computer icon.  Press the context menu
key and arrow up once to bring out your properties menu.  When the enter key
is pressed, you will land on the tab control tree which will enable you to
navigate to the different pages of the properties menu.  Arrow right until
you hear advanced.  Tab until you hear environment variables button and
press enter.  The first option you'll come across is the user environment
which will not be of interest to you in this case.  Tab until you hear
system environment.  It is a list of environment variables available to you.
Arrow down until you hear path.  Now, tab until you hear edit-I button.
Upon pressing the enter or space bar, you'll be presented with an edit box
which lists all the programs which can successfully run only if an
environment path was set up for them.  Press ctrl+right arrow or
ctrl+pagedown which will mark at the end of the semi-colon separated list.
Put a semi-colon mark at the end of the last available environment variable
if it is not present, then type in, for example, "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
SDK r2\bin" without the quotes and semicolon at the end.  I would recommend
that you really pay attention to the whereabouts of your sdk's bin
subdirectory by physically browsing for it yourself.  When your are sure
that this has been done correctly, press ok, then ok and ok again to close
the properties menu.  Your environment path is now set.
2.  I am assuming you are using the visuall c++ 2005 express ide in this
case, though the procedure involved hear applies to any version of the
visual studio 2005 ide.
open up your vc++ express ide.  At the start page, choose tools/options.
You will be first presented with the general tab.  Arrow down until you come
to the projects and solutions tree.  Arrow right to open it.  Arrow down
until you hear VC++ directories.  Tab to a list which says Show Directories
For.  The first item on that list is executable files.  Check to see if your
SDK's bin directory is in the list by tabbing until you get to the list
which will present you with a list of executables or bin subdirs necessary
for running and building your programs.  If it is not there, Tab to the new
line entry, press the space bar and repeat the typing of the sdk bin
directory path that you did when setting up your environment path.  Now, tab
back to the VC++ Files list, arrrow down to Include files, then tab to New
Line.  Press your space bar and type in something like "C:\Program
Files\Microsoft SDK r2\Include".  Now tab back to the VC++ files list and do
the same with the Library and Source subdirectories of your sdk directory
tree, thus setting their paths internally to the VC++ ide.  Once you have
done that, check to see if you have successfully set the SDK's path.  Go to
the command prompt.  CD to where your setenv.bat is located.  You'll hear
the usual microsoft message.  Type in cl.exe -v.  If you have set everything
correctly, the version of your c++ compiler should be announced.  You are
now ready to go.  Hope this tutorial will help other new c++ programmers as
well.  Cheers!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Graham Hardy <mailto:graham.hardy@xxxxxxxxx>  
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 9:22 AM
Subject: Installing MS Win32 SDK.

Hi all - For some time now I've been trying to get the Microsoft SDK to
install correctly. Everything seems to be there - all the include files,
libraries, and NMAKE include files - and, to the best of my knowledge, all
of the environment variables are set correctly (using the supplied
setenv.cmd). However, any time I try to compile something, even one of its
'samples', it stops with an error telling me that certain files can't be
found.
 
For example, entering NMAKE in the directory \Samples\Begin\Simple produces
the following output.--
 
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003
R2\Samples\Begin
\Simple>nmake
Microsoft (R) Program Maintenance Utility   Version 7.00.8882
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1988-2000. All rights reserved.
cl -c -DCRTAPI1=_cdecl -DCRTAPI2=_cdecl -nologo -GS -D_X86_=1  -DWIN32 -
D_WIN32 -W3 -D_WINNT -D_WIN32_WINNT=0x0500 -D_WIN32_IE=0x0500
-DWINVER=0x0500
-D_MT -MTd /WX /Fo"WIN2000_DEBUG\\" /Fd"WIN2000_DEBUG\\" simple.c
simple.c
simple.c(12) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'stdio.h': No
such f
ile or directory
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'cl' : return code '0x2'
Stop.

All of these directory trees have me stumped, I'm afraid. I'd love
suggestions, even if they are things like, Use the .NET SDK instead.
 
Many thanks,
Graham.
 

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