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From:	Charles Sandmann <sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: WinXP and DJGPP....
Date:	Fri, 01 Feb 2002 14:19:18 CST
Organization:	Rice University, Houston TX
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> I'm getting a WinXP-based system. I've
> read a lot of different things that say that DJGPP-compiled
> programs won't run on computers that run Windows XP. 

This isn't true.  Many run fine; others can have problems ranging
from minor to severe.  All of the major problems are fixable.

> Why is this? Is there any way to run them without having to 
> install another OS? An emulator or something? I've even read
> that DOOM runs very poorly.

Windows XP is based on the Windows 2000 kernel (which is based on
the Windows NT kernel).  There are a number of bugs in the long
file name API support; there are also bugs in the NTVDM when 
nesting programs.  These have been worked around in the V2.03
refresh.  See http://clio.rice.edu/djgpp/win2k/main_203.htm
for more information.  There are links on this page which describe
the problems in detail and even how to make old images work in
some cases.

> What about DJGPP development on WinXP? 

DJGPP development on WinXP is not quite as well supported as under
Win 9X.  For example: profiling, signals, hardware interrupts, 
low level graphics sometimes don't behave correctly on WinNT based
kernels.  But when you make a mistake, the odds of crashing WinXP
are much lower than crashing Win9x - so overall I prefer the newer
environment.

> Is there a chance that
> a new DJGPP version (that supports WinXP) will be released?

The v2.03 refresh is on Simtel and clio.  All of binaries have not
been rebuilt yet with the new libraries (and we will probably refresh 
the refresh to support GCC 3.1 builds - which is why it hasn't been 
"announced").

> If not, does this mean that DJGPP will be useless in a few years? 

One of the reasons I returned to DJGPP development was to make sure that
Windows 2000 and Windows XP would be good environments for DJGPP 
images.  I feel we have solved the major issues (in just a few months
time) - reported them to Microsoft for fixes in future releases, and
proven anything left to fix is managable.

What we need now is more people to use Windows 2000 and XP as DJGPP
environments to make them even better supported.  Go for it!

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