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I fixed Windows native development

marler8997.github.io

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Re: I fixed Windows native development

#181

Post by easton »

anankaie wrote: post #142

Why not use winget to do it? `winget install --id Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools`. If you need the Windows(/App) SDK too for the WinRT-features, you can add `winget install --id Microsoft.WindowsSDK.10.0.18362` and/or `winget install --id Microsoft.WindowsAppRuntime.1.8`

Having been the person that used to support those packages, it’s not that simple. You need to pass what workloads you need installed too, and if it’s a project you’re not familiar with god help you.

I used to just install the desktop development one and then work through the build errors until I got it to work, was somewhat painful. (Yes, .vsconfig makes this easier but it still didn’t catch everything when last I was into Windows dev).

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#182

Post by wizzwizz4 »

esseph wrote: post #59
its_notjack wrote: post #34

Is this post AI-written? The repeated lists with highlighted key points, the "it's not just [x], but [y]" and "no [a] just [b]" scream LLM to me. It would be good to know how much of this post and this project was human-built.

> Is this post AI-written? What if it was? What if it wasn't? What if you never find out definitely? Do you wonder that about all content? If so, doesn't that get exhausting?

What's exhausting is getting through a ten-paragraph article and realising there was only two paragraphs of actual content, then having to wade back through it to figure out which parts came from the prompt, and which parts were entirely made up by the automated sawdust injector.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#183

Post by afdbcreid »

sippeangelo wrote: post #144
pjmlp wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which has been fixed on .NET 5 and later. .NET Framework should only be used for legacy applications. Unfortunately there are still many around that depend on .NET Framework.

.NET Framework 5 or .NET Core 5?

There is no .NET Framework 5. .NET Core 5 is just .NET 5.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#184

Post by forrestthewoods »

jezek2 wrote: post #75

I wish open source projects would support MingW or at least not actively blocking it's usage. It's a good compiler that provides an excellent compatibility without the need of any extra runtime DLLs. I don't understand how open source projects can insist on requiring a proprietary compiler.

Eww no. MingW is evil and no project should ever use it.

Just use Clang + MSVC STL + WinSDK. Very simple.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#186

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

vitaminCPP wrote: post #172
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some pretty useful abstractions and libraries that MinGW doesn't work with. Biggest example is the WIL[1], which Windows kernel programmers use and is a massive improvement in ergonomics and safety when writing native Windows platform code. [1]: https://github.com/microsoft/wil

I fail to see why this would not work with gcc if it works with clang. The runtime?

'MinGW' is not GCC; it's an ABI, and from the developer perspective it is also the headers and the libraries. You can have GCC MinGW, Clang MinGW, Rust MinGW, Zig MinGW, C# AOT MinGW.

To answer your question, the headers.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#187

Post by forrestthewoods »

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…

MinGW is the most monstrous of monstrosity. Never in a million years touch that garbage.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#188

Post by forrestthewoods »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #52

One day I decided to port my text editor to Windows. Since it depends on pcre2 and treesitter, these two libraries had to be provided by the system. In the span of ~2hrs I didn't manage to find a way to please Zig compiler to notice "system" libraries to link against. Perhaps I'm too spoiled by installing a system wide dependency in a single command. Or Windows took a wrong turn a couple of decades ago and is very ho…

System wide dependencies is fundamentally an awful idea that is wrong and you should never ever do it.

All dependencies should be vendored into your project.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#189

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #187
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…

MinGW is the most monstrous of monstrosity. Never in a million years touch that garbage.

I dunno, it has its uses when porting software written for UNIX-first. Plus, I pointed out Clang, rather than GCC, because Clang is natively a cross-compiler. I don't like to be dogmatic about stuff; if it's useful then it's useful. If it isn't then I will say why (as I explained why there's no need for MSYS2/Cygwin below).

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#190

Post by Groxx »

dotancohen wrote: post #176
Aurornis wrote: post #162

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 insta…

You don't have to install executables downloaded from an unknown GitHub account named marler8997. You can download that script and read it just like any other shell script. Just like those complaining about curl|sh on Linux, you are confusing install instructions with source code availability. Just download the script and read it if you want. The curl|sh workflow is no more dangerous that downloading an executable of…

It is somewhat different when your system forces binaries to be signed... but yeah, largely agreed. The abject refusal of curl|sh is strange to me, unless the refusers are also die-hard GPL adherents. Binaries are significantly more opaque and easier to hide malware in, in almost all cases.
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