Command-Line Compilation: Notes

SDK Versions

This is just a place where I keep miscellaneous snippets of information and observations about the compiling and linking process. Consequently, it's not very well structured, and some of the items are incomplete, but maybe it will give you some ideas.

v7.0A comes with .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, and is intended for Windows 7 but works on Windows versions since XP. It also includes the C++ compiler and linker. So, in principle, you could get away with downloading only this, and ignoring VS, although I've not tried doing that.

v7.1A comes with .NET Framework 4.0, and is intended for Windows 7 but requires at least Windows XP Service Pack 3. Again, it includes a C++ compiler.

v8.0 and v8.1 come with .NET Framework 4.5, and support Windows 8 but requires at least Windows 7. The SDK no longer contains any compilers, so you will need to download Visual Studio separately. You also need to install the .NET Framework 4.5 beforehand. For some reason, Microsoft's main download site for these SDKs refers to them as “Windows Phone SDK”; whether that means that they are unsuitable for ordinary desktop development is unclear to me. However, the same version of these SDKs is available from other Microsoft sites, where they are referred to as “Windows Software Development Kit for Windows”.

v8.0 and v8.1 have their Include files divided between two subdirectories, shared and um. UM probably stands for User Mode (as opposed to Kernel Mode).

v8.0's 32 bit library files are in win8\um\x86, whilst v8.1's library files are in winv6.3\um\x86. Change “x32” to “x64” to link with the 64 bit libraries.

Troubleshooting Checklist

Errors that occur during the linking process are often difficult to understand, partly because the error messages can be misleading.

If linking an object file for a C++ (.cpp) program, make sure that any libraries built with C (not C++) code were included with

extern
		   "c"

Make sure that the path to link.exe is correct. You might be running a different version, or a completely different program that happens to have the same name, because its directory is earlier in the PATH.

Make sure the machine target (the /MACHINE: option) is correct. That is, it matches the value used for the libraries to which you're linking.

Make sure that the compile debug format (/MDd, /MTd, /DEBUG, /Zi, etc.) also matches the one used for the library files.

Make sure that the static/dynamic linkage type (/MT, /MD) matches the one used for the compilation of the library files.

If you are getting error messages that mention things like NODEFAULTLIB:MSVCRT and NODEFAULTLIB:LIBCMT, check that you are compling with the correct static/dynamic linking model.

If nmake can't find an exe, the error message stops at the first space in the path, so even when the path is correct, it will report that it can't find c:\program.

In makefiles, the comment character must be the first character on the line; any whitespace will cause an error????

If you see an erro referring to version _MSC_VER incompatibility, it probably means that you are trying to use header/library files that were created with a different version of Visual Studio. You might have two different versions of Visual Studio installed, and the compiler/linker is from a different version to the header/library files. Another source of this error is using an incompatible SDK.

Environment Variables

My tutories use command line arguments to specify the header and library directories. However, if lots of different libraries are being used, the command line can become unwieldy. Moreover, the scripts/makefiles that rely on these directory names will fail if used on a different computer with different directory structures (e.g. with different versions of the libraries).

These drawbacks can be avoided by using environment variables; cl refers to the environment variable INCLUDE for directories it should search for header files, whilst link refers to LIB for directories containing library files. Environment variables are specific to a computer, so as long as all the libraries needed for the compilation are present, then the compilation and link commands can be free of any mentions of the directories.

So, the command-line options (e.g. \I %INC_VS% and \LIBPATH:%LIB_VS%) in my tutorials could be replaced by the following environment variables.

set INCLUDE="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\Include";"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Include\shared";"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Include\um" set LIB="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\Lib";"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Lib\winv6.3\um\x86"

cl and link will automatically check these environment variables; you don't have to mention them at all when running the programs.

Visual Studio Path

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\bin\NETFX 4.0 Tools C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\bin\x86 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Team Tools\Performance Tools C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\VCPackages C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5 C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\Tools C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\BIN C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VSTSDB\Deploy C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\F#\3.0\Framework\v4.0\ C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TestWindow

Visual Studio Environment Variables

CommonProgramFiles=C:\Program Files\Common Files DevEnvDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ ExtensionSdkDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0\ExtensionSDKs Framework35Version=v3.5 FrameworkDir=C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\ FrameworkDIR32=C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\ FrameworkVersion=v4.0.30319 FrameworkVersion32=v4.0.30319 FSHARPINSTALLDIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\F#\3.0\Framework\v4.0\ INCLUDE=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\INCLUDE;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\ATLMFC\INCLUDE;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\include\shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\include\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\include\winrt; LIB=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\ATLMFC\LIB;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\lib\win8\um\x86; LIBPATH=C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319;C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\ATLMFC\LIB;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\References\CommonConfiguration\Neutral;C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0\ExtensionSDKs\Microsoft.VCLibs\11.0\References\CommonConfiguration\neutral; PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE=AMD64 ProgramFiles=C:\Program Files VCINSTALLDIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\ VSINSTALLDIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\ WindowsSdkDir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\ WindowsSdkDir_35=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bin\ WindowsSdkDir_old=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\