Windows.h Woes for your Visual C++ 2005 or 2008 Express?

[dsilvia]

Hi!

If this is the case, you're in for a long search with a lot of dead ends, outdated and just plain wrong answers, and misleading found topics and general "garbage" webpages, just because they're "close" to what you're searching for!:-<

I know! I went through it for 2 days until a thought occurred to me, "What, exacly, was I looking for"? Questions that resembled mine, or a logical solution? I was searching with the former, not the latter. Here's how I found the latter!;)

Okay, here's the skinny. It would appear that Microsoft is taking the "if we offer it for free, strip it!" attitude again. What comes with the current Express 2005/2008 is a minimal, stripped down version of the SDK. So, we're back to multiple downloads/searches/hassels again!:-<

First off, one has to rid one's self of the "habit" of referring to it as the "Platform" SDK. That, except in legacy, no longer exists!8-O

If you want to be able to build code now, you need to remember you are searching for the Windows SDK. (strange, I seem to recall it used to be that until Microsoft changed it to Platform SDK!?:~{ )

Go to:

http://www.microsoft.com/express/

then search for:

Windows SDK

This should result in a Live Search listing whose 2nd entry (or thereabouts) is:

Download details: Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET ...

taking you to:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=E6E1C3DF-A74F-4207-8586-711EBE331CDC&displaylang=en
Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5

From here you download Setup.exe, which will install:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows

Which has v6.0A and v6.1 directories with:

bin
Include
Lib

and:

Bin
Help
Include
Lib
License
Redist
Samples
Setup

subdirectories, respectively.

I have this now installed on my Vista Ultimate 64-bit system and have successfully built 3rd party library software with Visual C++ 2005/2008 Express (both)!:-D

Note that my system is 64-bit. This appears to make no difference, at least, not in building this library. The Windows SDK only gets installed into the Program Files directory, not the Program Files (x86) directory, the default for 32-bit on a 64-bit system. This is probably because only the headers are being used, other items, like executables and libraries are being found in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 8/9 directories.

HTH:

thx,
Dave S.

When you are up to your eyeballs in alligators it is sometimes hard to remember that your original objective was to DRAIN the SWAMP!

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