On Windows XP I would use VC2008, or vc2010. The Visual part of MSVC 
will require free registration within 30 days. However you can use the 
command-line C compiler part of MSVC without any registration 
requirements, which is my preference anyway.

About five years ago I set-out to port some old COBOL apps to Windows, 
and so doing found the Windows environment to be somewhat chaotic. First 
the structure of the exe has changed overtime, and I started with a old 
1995 Free student version of Fujistu COBOL, not wanting to spend 
thousands on a real COBOL compiler, that was failure. So I looked into 
OpenCOBOL which makes use of the ansi C compiler. I first tried the GNU 
compiler for Windows with CygWin and then Minimal version, and quickly 
found about about dll-hell, and lots of headaches. So using OpenCOBOL 
with the MSVC compiler worked much better, and all from the command-line.

Similar issues using GNU OpenCOBOL on HPUX with core-dumps that just 
could not be explained. Using OpenCOBOL with the HP C compiler for HPUX 
worked much better.

So OpenCOBOL works great, but use the C compiler that was designed for 
the platform you are running on, and avoid old versions, or student 
versions that are out-dated, or never intended to do real work..

Using MSVC on the Windows command-line you'll use the 'cl' command to 
run the compiler, 'link' to run the linker, 'lc' for .Net, and then 'rc' 
is the resource compiler, to sign or add an icon to your exe, and so 
on......

Try 'cl /help', 'lc /help', and 'rc /help' at the command-line.
and
LINK /Link for help on Linker
LINK /Lib for help on Library Manag
LINK /Dump for help on Dumper
LINK /Edit for help on Editor
LINK /CvtCIL for help on CvtCIL
LINK /Help for help on Helper

Debugging?
At one point I downloaded all the symbols for the Windows XP operating 
system, and put the entire OS in debug mode to trackdown problems. But 
eventually I found some nice tools to debug Windows exe's...

Depends -- funny but it does help you cover your *ss. by helping you 
find where all your dll's are being loaded from, or not loaded at all !
http://www.dependencywalker.com/

Also sysinternals;
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545021.aspx

There is a tool in sysinternals that will monitor any process, showing 
you files being opened and read, very handy. PROCMON I think it was called.

Cheers,
Mike.




On 11/28/2012 09:59 PM, Keven Miller (rtt) wrote:
> Over the Thansgiving weekend,
> I gathered the C++Builder 5.5 (Last Borland command line tools - free!)
> (ie compiler, linker, etc)
>
> Got last OWL sources from the OWLNext sourceforge project,
>
> and after some compile adjustments since Zebra was
> originally written as a Win16 app,
>
> I got Zebra32.exe built.
>
>
>
> Now for the runtime.
> I get this error:
>    Title:  ObjectWindows Exception
>    Text:  Class registration fail for window ZEBRA - Terminal 
> Emulator, 0, TMainWindow
>    Button: OK
>
> click, and then this:
>    Title:  zebra32.exe
>    Text:  Abnormal program termination
>    Button: OK
>
>
> I'm not well experienced with Windows programming, and none on Borland 
> OWL.
> Can anyone help shed some light on this issue?
>
> In the meantime, I've been pulling required OWL sources into my Zebra 
> build project
> to make it a standalone (not require OWL libs).  With thoughts of 
> putting it all into
> MSVC.  I suppose it could be just missing calls required in Win32 apps 
> that are not
> in Win16 ones.
>
> Thanks,
> Keven Miller - [log in to unmask]
>
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