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I fixed Windows native development

marler8997.github.io

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Re: I fixed Windows native development

#161

Post by LtWorf »

IshKebab wrote: post #113
tgtweak wrote: post #64

Toolchains on linux are not clear from dependency hell either - ever install an npm package that needs cmake underneath? glibc dependencies that can't be resolved because you need two different versions simultaneously in the same build somehow... python in another realm here as well. That shiny c++ project that needs a bleeding edge boost version that is about 6 months away from being included in your package manager…

> python in another realm here as well uv has more of less solved this (thank god). Night and day difference from Pip (or any of the other attempts to fix it honestly). At this point they should just deprecate Pip.

Ah yes let's all depend on some startup that will surely change the license at some point.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#162

Post by Aurornis »

Looking at the script:

> curl -L -o msvcup.zip https://github.com/marler8997/msvcup/releases/download/v2026...

No thanks. I’m not going to install executables downloaded from an unknown GitHub account named marler8997 without even a simple hash check.

As others have explained the Windows situation is not as bad as this blog post suggests, but even if it was this doesn’t look like a solution. It’s just one other installation script that has sketchy sources.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#163

Post by michaelsbradley »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #153
michaelsbradley wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t you thinking of Cygwin, or the MSYS2 shell (dev tooling)? The Windows-native software you build with MSYS2 can be shipped to and run by users that don’t have anything of MSYS2 installed.

It was not clear what the parent commenter was addressing; I was under the impression they meant 'compile against the MSYS2 environment', which is broadly Cygwin, yes, which should not be forced onto a user.

Okay, but that just seems to be perpetuating the misunderstanding of what MSYS2 is intended for.

It gives you a *nix-like shell/dev environment and tools, but you build native software that runs on Windows systems that don’t have or need to have all/parts of MSYS2/Cygwin installed.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#165

Post by shevy-java »

To me it seems as if Microsoft wants to make it deliberately harder to have software developers. Now - I installed all the required things and compiled on Windows too, but it is very annoying compared to Linux. Microsoft should simply have ONE default build, e. g. "download this and 80% of developers will be happy". No need for a gazillion checkboxes.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#168

Post by shevy-java »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #158

No one should use any of these weird Frankenstein monstrosities in 2026. And a batch script? :( PowerShell exists. Install: - contrary to the blog post, the entirety of Visual Studio, because the IDE and debugger is *really damn good*. - LLVM-MinGW[1] Load the 'VSDevShell' DLL[2] for PowerShell, and you're good to go, with three different toolchains now: cl.exe from VS clang-cl.exe—you don't need to install this sepa…

LLVM-MinGW sounds external to Microsoft though. I think the blog focused on in-Microsoft solutions. And I am not sure the "contrary to the blog content" is valid - compared to Linux, the Microsoft stack is much more annoying to install. I installed it, but it was annoying to no ends and took ages.

Good to know LLVM works on windows too though.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#170

Post by michaelsbradley »

michaelsbradley wrote: post #163
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not clear what the parent commenter was addressing; I was under the impression they meant 'compile against the MSYS2 environment', which is broadly Cygwin, yes, which should not be forced onto a user.

Okay, but that just seems to be perpetuating the misunderstanding of what MSYS2 is intended for. It gives you a *nix-like shell/dev environment and tools, but you build native software that runs on Windows systems that don’t have or need to have all/parts of MSYS2/Cygwin installed.

Example:

I built a network daemon using the MSYS2 CLANG64 environment and llvm toolchain on Windows 10.

Windows 7 x64 users could download the compiled single-file executable and run it just fine, so long as they installed Microsoft’s Universal C Runtime, which is a free download from Microsoft’s website.

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