Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 11:52:44 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id: <199712261952.LAA12181@adit.ap.net>
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To: "Grigoriy Strokin" <grg AT philol DOT msu DOT ru>, djgpp AT delorie DOT com
From: Nate Eldredge <eldredge AT ap DOT net>
Subject: Re: Fw: Long file names under Windows NT
Precedence: bulk

At 08:24  12/25/1997 +0300, Grigoriy Strokin wrote:

>Please advise me the better direction in which I must investigate the
>problem if
>I still want to make DJGPP to support LFN in NT myself:
>
>1)
>Can I find any TSR-program emulating long file name support for DOS programs
>under NT?
Not yet, but this is what somebody is working on. The problem is that NT
long filenames are supported only through the Windows API, and talking to
that from DOS is a nontrivial task. When finished, the TSR will get the INT
21h LFN functions and call the appropriate API functions to do the work.
>
>2)
>Is there any documentation on how to implement those int 21h functions
>myself? I am not a very experienced low-level programmer, but I could try to
>implement them.
No. Apparently it involves virtual machine communication, and god-only-knows
how many other complicated pieces of Windows magic. You could search the
archives for the announcement from the person who is working on it, and
e-mail them and ask to help.
>
>3)
>May be you would recommend trying to recompile all of the programs with
>RSX/NT toolkit or Visual C++ and so get 32-bit windows code, or such a task
>will be to complicated because of several incompatibilities?
If you have Visual C++, you are welcome to use it. But then you will be
writing a Windows program, which introduces many more complications than you
probably want. Same goes for RSXNT, only it's even more complicated (or so I
hear).

Nate Eldredge
eldredge AT ap DOT net