Python MSVC++ binaries considered evil

[David Bolen]

Tim Roberts <timr at probo.com> writes:

> Microsoft introduced a new style of import library in Visual C++ 6.0, and
> the Win32 Pythons ship with the new style import libraries.  The new style
> is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than the old style import libraries, but they are
> not downward compatible: they cannot be used with Borland C++, nor even
> with Visual C++ 5.0.
> 
> So, it's not the .DLLs that are broken, but rather the .LIBs that get you
> there.

But if you need the old format, a recent enough version of the lib
utility can convert it.  I had to do this with some system import
libraries so we could link them against some of our older applications
that were still being built with VC 5.

You can get an appropriate version of lib inside a recent platform SDK
from Microsoft (albeit one mungo-large download for a single file, but
developers even with non-MS compilers may already have the SDK
installed) - not sure if you can get the utility standalone anywhere.

--
-- David
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