http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/ - appearantly it's the full optimizing compiler from Visual Studio .net 2003. IANAL, but it doesn't seem the EULA has restrictions on redistributing EXEs you create with this... worth a look anyway :alright:
I just bumped itno it as well and started my download about 10 minutes ago.
Now somebody should just point us to some nice free IDEs for this thing and everything will be great :alright:
Now somebody should just point us to some nice free IDEs for this thing and everything will be great :alright:
I saw your link in the 'accounting' thread, looks like they indeed released the full blown compiler without licensing restrictions :) Too bad it downloads at 10kb/s here :(.
This is also very nice for people that can't afford the proffessional edition of visual studio. The standard edition of VC++ isn't expensive but has the standard compiler (non-optimizing). I think many people can live without the features of the professional edition but having an optimizing compiler is a serious thing that was missing.
Some info from the FAQ:
What is the Visual C++ Toolkit 2003?
The Visual C++ Toolkit is a free edition of Microsoft?s professional Visual C++ optimizing compiler and standard libraries ? the same optimizing compiler and standard libraries that ship in Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional!
Are there any restrictions on how I use the Visual C++ Toolkit?
In general, no. You may use the Toolkit to build C++ -based applications, and you may redistribute those applications. Please read the End User License Agreement (EULA), included with the Toolkit, for complete details.
I have Visual Studio or Visual C++. Do I need the Visual C++ Toolkit?
The Visual C++ Toolkit will work fine alongside installed versions of Visual Studio and Visual C++. If you already use Visual Studio .NET 2003, you do not need the Visual C++ Toolkit, unless you want to see the included samples. Everything else included in the Toolkit is included with Visual Studio .NET 2003.
Is there any technical support available for the Visual C++ Toolkit?
No. The Visual C++ Toolkit is a free download and is provided without formal technical support. Documentation for the Visual C++ compiler is available online, and it is recommended that further assistance be obtained by posing questions in online programming newsgroups and community forums.
What does the Visual C++ Toolkit install on my machine?
The Toolkit installs 1) the Visual C++ command-line compiler and linker, and their dependencies. 2) the Visual C++ C Runtime Library and static-link modules, and the Standard C++ Library, including STL 3) the Microsoft .NET Framework Runtime, including library files necessary for building C++ applications that run on the .NET Common Language Runtime, 4) four samples demonstrating key features of the Visual C++ compiler and libraries.
What do I do after I?ve downloaded and installed the Visual C++ Toolkit?
Start by familiarizing yourself with the included samples. Learn how Visual C++ can help you write better applications. Learn how Visual C++ can better optimize your applications, and make them more robust. Learn how to incorporate advanced ISO C++ template features in your code. Learn how to optionally incorporate the .NET Framework in to your applications. Then, build your own C++ programs using the Toolkit. You might decide you want to augment the Toolkit with additional free tools from Microsoft, including the Platform SDK, or the .NET Framework SDK. You might also wish to evaluate and upgrade to Visual Studio .NET Professional, which includes many additional tools and features for C++ developers, including a professional debugger and code editor.
Thomas
This is also very nice for people that can't afford the proffessional edition of visual studio. The standard edition of VC++ isn't expensive but has the standard compiler (non-optimizing). I think many people can live without the features of the professional edition but having an optimizing compiler is a serious thing that was missing.
Some info from the FAQ:
What is the Visual C++ Toolkit 2003?
The Visual C++ Toolkit is a free edition of Microsoft?s professional Visual C++ optimizing compiler and standard libraries ? the same optimizing compiler and standard libraries that ship in Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional!
Are there any restrictions on how I use the Visual C++ Toolkit?
In general, no. You may use the Toolkit to build C++ -based applications, and you may redistribute those applications. Please read the End User License Agreement (EULA), included with the Toolkit, for complete details.
I have Visual Studio or Visual C++. Do I need the Visual C++ Toolkit?
The Visual C++ Toolkit will work fine alongside installed versions of Visual Studio and Visual C++. If you already use Visual Studio .NET 2003, you do not need the Visual C++ Toolkit, unless you want to see the included samples. Everything else included in the Toolkit is included with Visual Studio .NET 2003.
Is there any technical support available for the Visual C++ Toolkit?
No. The Visual C++ Toolkit is a free download and is provided without formal technical support. Documentation for the Visual C++ compiler is available online, and it is recommended that further assistance be obtained by posing questions in online programming newsgroups and community forums.
What does the Visual C++ Toolkit install on my machine?
The Toolkit installs 1) the Visual C++ command-line compiler and linker, and their dependencies. 2) the Visual C++ C Runtime Library and static-link modules, and the Standard C++ Library, including STL 3) the Microsoft .NET Framework Runtime, including library files necessary for building C++ applications that run on the .NET Common Language Runtime, 4) four samples demonstrating key features of the Visual C++ compiler and libraries.
What do I do after I?ve downloaded and installed the Visual C++ Toolkit?
Start by familiarizing yourself with the included samples. Learn how Visual C++ can help you write better applications. Learn how Visual C++ can better optimize your applications, and make them more robust. Learn how to incorporate advanced ISO C++ template features in your code. Learn how to optionally incorporate the .NET Framework in to your applications. Then, build your own C++ programs using the Toolkit. You might decide you want to augment the Toolkit with additional free tools from Microsoft, including the Platform SDK, or the .NET Framework SDK. You might also wish to evaluate and upgrade to Visual Studio .NET Professional, which includes many additional tools and features for C++ developers, including a professional debugger and code editor.
Thomas
This part is probably the most interesting:
Are there any restrictions on how I use the Visual C++ Toolkit?
In general, no. You may use the Toolkit to build C++ -based applications, and you may redistribute those applications.
And yeah, a good idea - get the cheap(er) standard edition of VS, and plug in this optimizing compiler. Neat! (too bad masm isn't included with this free download... you're still bound by the restrictions if you get it from the DDK (ie, hutch's masm32 package)).
Are there any restrictions on how I use the Visual C++ Toolkit?
In general, no. You may use the Toolkit to build C++ -based applications, and you may redistribute those applications.
And yeah, a good idea - get the cheap(er) standard edition of VS, and plug in this optimizing compiler. Neat! (too bad masm isn't included with this free download... you're still bound by the restrictions if you get it from the DDK (ie, hutch's masm32 package)).
I have VC++ 6 Introductory Edition (It came with a book). Do you guys happen to know if it includes the optimizing compiler you mentioned above?
VC++ 6 is old, there has been made MANY improvements to the compiler since then (like, it's now one of the most ISO compliant compilers out there).
Also, since you have the Introductory Edition, it's a very safe bet that all optimizations are turned *off* in your compiler... you should definitely head over and grab this download right away :)
Also, since you have the Introductory Edition, it's a very safe bet that all optimizations are turned *off* in your compiler... you should definitely head over and grab this download right away :)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/ - appearantly it's the full optimizing compiler from Visual Studio .net 2003. IANAL, but it doesn't seem the EULA has restrictions on redistributing EXEs you create with this... worth a look anyway :alright:
Too bad it is only supported on Win 2000 +.
Leaves a lot of folks out.
VC++ 6 is old, there has been made MANY improvements to the compiler since then (like, it's now one of the most ISO compliant compilers out there).
Also, since you have the Introductory Edition, it's a very safe bet that all optimizations are turned *off* in your compiler... you should definitely head over and grab this download right away :)
Cool thanks for the info :alright:
Too bad it is only supported on Win 2000 +.
Leaves a lot of folks out.
Hmm, what's the problem with previous windows versions? Might be fixable (not that I'd ever want to go back to less than win2k, but some people refuse to move on :))
Hmm, what's the problem with previous windows versions? Might be fixable (not that I'd ever want to go back to less than win2k, but some people refuse to move on :))
You might consider some other reasons such as:
1. They are happy with the OS version they have
2. They don't have the funds to upgrade
the funds is a quite valid reason - and so is the other, I guess. I just don't understand that part, especially when doing program development. It's plain too easy to bring down the system even with trivial code. And I certainly wouldn't trust my sourcecode to the FAT filesystem >_<
the funds is a quite valid reason - and so is the other, I guess. I just don't understand that part, especially when doing program development. It's plain too easy to bring down the system even with trivial code. And I certainly wouldn't trust my sourcecode to the FAT filesystem >_<
What do you mean bring the system down.
FAT system has never caused me any problems.
I have a friend who has Win XP and they have had more serious problems that I.
What do you mean bring the system down.
Crash the operating system, requiring a reboot. You can do this from ring3 (ie, usermode) code easily on 9x, it doesn't take much more than using a bad pointer by accident. It's also easy to do from small API problems - especially GDI is *very* fragile on 9x, and you can get some nasty bluescreens easily.
FAT system has never caused me any problems.
I'm happy for you :) - it's a pretty fragile filesystem. It is *NOT* fun when your root directory becomes corrupted and you just have a bunch of very garbled filenames >_<. NTFS is quite a bit safer - it's journalled, which means that every change is logged before doing the change, so if anything borks, it can usually be recovered. Funny enough it doesn't really feel slower than FAT. It does seem that the different structure of the filesystem makes it faster for doing searches and such, though. And naturally, it's handling of long file names and non-oem characters in filenames is a lot better.
I recently had some problems (http://www.asmcommunity.net/board/index.php?topic=17926) - but this was caused by some BAD driver programming from ATI, not NT. Besides, before things went really haywire, NTFS auto-repaired itself. This said, if you manage to make things break on NTFS, they can break very very hard... I just haven't ever witnessed that myself.
Took a bit getting used to win2k, and it does indeed have higher hardware requirements (especially RAM though - CPU requirements aren't *that* bad). But once I got used to it, well, I really learnt to appreciate it... especially the stability.
Anyway, enough sales speak for now ;)
the funds is a quite valid reason - and so is the other, I guess. I just don't understand that part, especially when doing program development. It's plain too easy to bring down the system even with trivial code. And I certainly wouldn't trust my sourcecode to the FAT filesystem >_<
Ya he has a point LOL, I remeber once I froze my Win95 system by writing a simple 16-bit DOS program with a few instructions (I forgot what those instructions were, one of them was "di"). Can I use this compiler with the VC++ 6 IDE?, I have VC++ 6.0 Enterprise.
Also I want to back up f0dder on one more count, FAT, it is much less secure than NTFS that part is correct, I have been using PC's for close to 12 yrs, and my first Win9x PC was OK, but that HDD was like 2GB, but when I got my 20GB aww man, I went to 2K so fast. I remember once my files all had garbled names with those weird ASCII characters and it did this about once or twice but luckily I ran Scandisk and it fixed it. The truth is NTFS is much more stable than FAT and certainly much more relaible and seems a bit faster on my system, I wont be going back to FAT anytime soon!! :D
Freeze 9x? Easy, cli + jmp $ . Poof. Crash 9x? Easy, write to arbitrary memory locations. Want total control of the system, possibly for malicious purpose? Easy, hack up the IDT and go ring0.
Also, another point of NTFS: ACLs. You can do some very nifty access control with ACLs, much more powerful and flexible than the typical unix-style user:group permissions. This isn't of much use for regular users, but it's nice for servers (of course, as things are now, you would want to avoid using microsoft applications for the server daemons, but windows itself is an okay choice... just remember to firewall all unnecessary ports etc. You do need to do this for *u*x too, there's NO excuse for not having a strict firewall whatever OS you run.)
Can't see why you shouldn't be able to use this free download with VS6, you could always try backing up the compiler files and overwriting them with the new ones. You won't be able to configure the new switches through the pretty IDE, but you can always add them as manual tool parameters.
Also, another point of NTFS: ACLs. You can do some very nifty access control with ACLs, much more powerful and flexible than the typical unix-style user:group permissions. This isn't of much use for regular users, but it's nice for servers (of course, as things are now, you would want to avoid using microsoft applications for the server daemons, but windows itself is an okay choice... just remember to firewall all unnecessary ports etc. You do need to do this for *u*x too, there's NO excuse for not having a strict firewall whatever OS you run.)
Can't see why you shouldn't be able to use this free download with VS6, you could always try backing up the compiler files and overwriting them with the new ones. You won't be able to configure the new switches through the pretty IDE, but you can always add them as manual tool parameters.
I'm happy for you :) - it's a pretty fragile filesystem. It is *NOT* fun when your root directory becomes corrupted and you just have a bunch of very garbled filenames >_<. NTFS is quite a bit safer - it's journalled, which means that every change is logged before doing the change, so if anything borks, it can usually be recovered. Funny enough it doesn't really feel slower than FAT. It does seem that the different structure of the filesystem makes it faster for doing searches and such, though. And naturally, it's handling of long file names and non-oem characters in filenames is a lot better.
There's one catch to that, user data is not guarantee to be consistent in case of a crash (unlike ext3 :().
Can't see why you shouldn't be able to use this free download with VS6, you could always try backing up the compiler files and overwriting them with the new ones. You won't be able to configure the new switches through the pretty IDE, but you can always add them as manual tool parameters.
That's what I'll do. I don't have VS 2003 (nor I wan't to have it), so i'll try to stick it into VS6. I agree that VS 2003 has some pretty things, but VS 2005 will be much better (refactoring for example..i LOVE refactoring).
Bye
Originally posted by f0dder
Crash the operating system, requiring a reboot. You can do this from ring3 (ie, usermode) code easily on 9x, it doesn't take much more than using a bad pointer by accident. It's also easy to do from small API problems - especially GDI is *very* fragile on 9x, and you can get some nasty bluescreens easily.
I think you have just had a lot of bad luck. 80% of my rare BSOD are from conflicts with programs and/or hardware related and not my programming.
I'm happy for you :) - it's a pretty fragile filesystem. It is *NOT* fun when your root directory becomes corrupted and you just have a bunch of very garbled filenames >_<. NTFS is quite a bit safer - it's journalled,
You are the first I've known that has the root directory garbled and I've talked to a lot of people and read
many programming newsgroups.
Crash the operating system, requiring a reboot. You can do this from ring3 (ie, usermode) code easily on 9x, it doesn't take much more than using a bad pointer by accident. It's also easy to do from small API problems - especially GDI is *very* fragile on 9x, and you can get some nasty bluescreens easily.
I think you have just had a lot of bad luck. 80% of my rare BSOD are from conflicts with programs and/or hardware related and not my programming.
I'm happy for you :) - it's a pretty fragile filesystem. It is *NOT* fun when your root directory becomes corrupted and you just have a bunch of very garbled filenames >_<. NTFS is quite a bit safer - it's journalled,
You are the first I've known that has the root directory garbled and I've talked to a lot of people and read
many programming newsgroups.
There's one catch to that, user data is not guarantee to be consistent in case of a crash (unlike ext3 :().
Hrm, I thought this was exactly what journalling guarantees? In any case, NTFS has always worked wonderfully for me, also in the case of crashes :) (I would like to see native ReiserFS support for NT though - that could be interesting).
I think you have just had a lot of bad luck. 80% of my rare BSOD are from conflicts with programs and/or hardware related and not my programming.
Not really, but I've done a lot of stupid mistakes when programming ;). 9x is okay if all your software is well-behaved, but it doesn't take much to bring everything crashing down, it's a pretty fragile OS. Also, I don't like the idea the a lot of parts of the OS still depends on 16bit code...
You are the first I've known that has the root directory garbled and I've talked to a lot of people and read many programming newsgroups.
It's happened a (very) few times. One of them was back in the dos days, before I had backups or recovery tools. Lost everything... stupid smartdrv. And there's a lot of nasty things that can happen to FAT... crosslinking, other kinds of corruption, etc. Even something as simple as the "extended information in the bootsector" of fat32 not being updated correctly (takes no more than a windows crash) can end up in pretty nasty situations if you don't do a scandisk. And with "normal users" or public computers at schools or libraries, people tend to press 'ignore' when scandisk pops up. I helped the sysadmins at an old school of mine, so I've seen quite a number of "bad things" ;). Not to mention at the museum where I do some IT support now, I'm *very* happy to have replaced the boss' win98/fat32 with XP/NTFS - a LOT less problems now. And it actually runs faster :)
Thanks for this hint, f0dder.
Too bad it is only supported on Win 2000 +.
Leaves a lot of folks out.
May be if I have time i will try to get it running with my PE file loader DPMILD32 (havent downloaded the compiler yet). The VC6 compiler worked with DPMILD32, even on DOSEMU (the current developer level)
Japheth
Has anyone here made some comparisons VC / OW (current versions) concerning quality of code generation?
Too bad it is only supported on Win 2000 +.
Leaves a lot of folks out.
May be if I have time i will try to get it running with my PE file loader DPMILD32 (havent downloaded the compiler yet). The VC6 compiler worked with DPMILD32, even on DOSEMU (the current developer level)
Japheth
Has anyone here made some comparisons VC / OW (current versions) concerning quality of code generation?
Hrm, I thought this was exactly what journalling guarantees? In any case, NTFS has always worked wonderfully for me, also in the case of crashes :) (I would like to see native ReiserFS support for NT though - that could be interesting).
Yeah, but only for filesystem data, not user data.
NTFS also worked fine for me, except that time when i cancelled the Boot-mode Diskeeper and 24 out of 30 GB of my data got trashed =(. If you're wandering, Diskeeper does have a cancel key, it's not like i rebooted while it was running.
Bye.