[Python-Dev] Linking with mscvrt

[Thomas Heller]

"Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> writes:

> I just came up with an idea how to resolve the VC versioning
> problems for good: Python should link with mscvrt.dll (which
> is part of the operating system), not with the CRT that the
> compiler provides.
>
> To do that, we would need to compile and link with the SDK
> header files and import libraries, not with the ones that
> visual studio provides.
>
> For that to work, everyone building Python or Python extensions (*)
> would have to install the Platform SDK (which is available
> for free, but contains quite a number of bits). Would that be
> acceptable?
>
> Disclaimer: I haven't tried yet whether this would actually
> work.
>
> Regards,
> Martin
>
> (*) For Python extensions, it should be possible to use mingw
> instead, and configure it for linking against msvcrt.

I think think would remove a lot of headaches.  Downloading and
installing the Platform SDK should not be an issue, imo.

The only problem that I see is this:

I'm not sure the platform SDK include files (.H and .IDL) are really
compatible with VC7.1.  I remember that we (on our company, building C++
software) had to 'Unregister the PSDK Directories with Visual Studio'
(available from the start menu) before building the stuff, otherwise
there were compiler errors.

Thomas