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[mingw/mingw-org-wsl.git] / mingwrt / readme.txt

                      Minimalist GNU-Win32 Readme
                            version 0.1.3
                           March 20, 1997
             Colin Peters <colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp>


0. Introduction

Mingw32 is short for the Minimalist GNU-Win32 package, and it is a
package which allows you to use GCC (as supplied by Cygnus in their GNU-
Win32 or Cygwin32 package) the GNU compiler, on Win32 platforms like
Windows 95 or NT, to compile "native" programs.

In this case "native" means programs which don't require extra DLLs like
the cygwin DLL. Mingw32 programs use CRTDLL.DLL to provide their C run
time library functions, and CRTDLL.DLL is supplied with all current
Win32 platforms. Thus the programs are light weight and easy to
distribute, they also do not automatically fall under the GNU Public
License as programs written with the GPL version of Cygwin32 do.


0.1 Archive Contents

Mingw32 version 0.1.3 is distributed in two files, mingw32_013.tar.gz
and mingsrc013.tar.gz. The first file contains the following components:

        - Import libraries for building programs which use the
          CRTDLL.DLL C run time library supplied with Win32 platforms.

        - crt0.o and dllcrt0.o, two "startup code" object files that
          perform program or DLL initialization without using
          CRTDLL.DLL (instead of CYGWIN.DLL).

        - specs, a configuration file for GCC which defines appropriate
          options for creating executables which use the CRTDLL.DLL C
          run time library.

        - Include files with appropriate type and macro definitions,
          and function prototypes for use with CRTDLL.DLL.

The source distribution (mingsrc013.tar.gz) contains the .def files and
source files used to create the various import libraries and object
files in the above list.


0.2 Usage Notes

Unlike some previous releases of Mingw32 the current version defaults to
building console applications, the same way that GCC normally does when
installed from the Cygnus distribution. The Mingw32 specs file also
introduces two command line arguments to GCC which can be used to
conveniently specify a console or GUI type build. When building console
programs "-console" can be used on the GCC command line, while GUI
programs can be built by specifying "-windows" (I tried defining -gui,
and it works, but produces an annoying warning about -gui not being
supported (?)). For example:

        gcc -o hellogui.exe hellogui.c -luser32 -windows

Although using different "crt0" files for GUI and console applications
has been suggested I have left the system more-or-less as it was in
0.1.1: crt0 sets up for and calls main, and if you don't supply a main
there is one in libmingw32.a, which in turn calls WinMain (actually
WinMain@16). This allows either main or WinMain entry points in console
or GUI applications, but if you don't supply main or WinMain, or don't
prototype WinMain as __stdcall__ you will get a linker error about an
"unresolved reference to WinMain@16." This is unfortunately cryptic, but
otherwise the system works quite well.

An important note if you want to rebuild from the sources of Mingw32 or
otherwise use the special version of Jam made for Mingw32: you need to
have a version of "rm", the UNIX equivalent of del, somewhere in your
path to use the current Jambase (which is built into the Jam
executable). The version that comes with the Cygnus files is perfectly
adequate.


0.3 Fixes and Improvements

Numerous small bug fixes have been made in the header files.

Floating point initialization, originally added in version 0.1.2, has
been modified to use the _fpreset function from CRTDLL.DLL instead of
cryptic and possibly less portable assembly code.

A new DLL-building option has been added to the specs file so that the
following link line will appropriately link in dllcrt0.o instead of the
normal crt0.o, and set the entry point correctly:

        gcc -dll -o dll.dll dll.o -Wl,dll.exp

A bug that would cause the wrong include files to be included in dual
installations of Cygwin32 and Mingw32 has been fixed (I hope) in the
Mingw32 specs file.

Alongside this release is a new release of Jam specially built for use
with Mingw32. It should be available from the same place you got this
file. This release of Jam includes rules for building DLLs, including
resources in your executables and creating import libraries. I also
intend to distribute a small set of example files showing how to do all
of these things with Mingw32 and Jam.

In the "coming soon" category I have a version of the GNU Standard C++
library ported to Mingw32. This means you can use iostreams, complex
numbers and all those neat STL (Standard Template Library) things
without needing the Cygwin DLL. I hope to put this port up for
downloading soon (along with the source of course).



1. Installing

1.1 Download and Unpack GNU-Win32 Beta 17.1

Because of the enormous size of the beta 17.1 release from Cygnus this
process will require about 85 MB or more of free disk space. The first
step, after downloading the Mingw32 package, is to download the GCC
binary distribution, all.tar.gz, from Cygnus (or a mirror), which is
about 10 MB. (Of course, if you just want the Cygwin32 install and are
not actually interested in adding on Mingw32 you don't need the Mingw32
package at all.)

Just to be safe, and if you have the 10 MB to spare, you should probably
copy the all.tar.gz file to a reasonably safe place at this point. This
will save you from the pain of downloading it again if something goes
wrong later.

To complete this step you need a gzip program (or just gunzip) and a tar
program. You can use the ones supplied by Cygnus (although some people
seem to have trouble with them, especially if you try to use pipes) or
one of the other ports available from your favorite freeware/shareware
software site.

First un-gzip the file with a command line like:
        gunzip all.tar.gz
or
        gzip -d all.tar.gz

This will produce a all.tar file and erase the all.tar.gz file (there
are options for gzip if you want to keep the original around). The tar
file is about 40 MB.

Make a directory for the cygnus stuff, such as C:\cygnus for example.
Move the tar file there (e.g. move \tmp\all.tar \cygnus). Don't copy it
unless you like waiting and wasting 40 MB of disk space.

Unpack the tar file into your new directory with a command line like:
        tar xvf all.tar

Run from the new directory (now containing the tar file). This is the
step where disk space usage reaches its peak, since the tar extraction
does not delete the all.tar file, and the amount of space taken by the
extracted files plus the tar file itself is well in excess of 80 MB
(mainly because, on my system at least, the files which are symbolic
links in the tar archive are copied as they are expanded onto the FAT
filesystem, so for example, a symbolic link to cygwin.dll, a 3 MB file,
takes an extra 3 MB, since the file is simply duplicated in the new
location). I could not actually do this on my laptop and had to extract
the tar file from a mounted network drive!

NOTE: From here on I will refer to files as if you had installed in
C:\cygnus. If you installed somewhere else then just replace C:\cygnus
with the appropriate path wherever it occurs.


1.2 Setup Cygwin32

This step is not 100% necessary, but it helps at this point to determine
if you've gotten this far without any major problems. Also, if you
intend to use both Cygwin32 and Mingw32 you will have to do some of
these steps eventually.

GCC and the other programs in the compiler suite all require cygwin.dll
to run. There are two copies of this file: one in C:\cygnus\H-i386-
cygwin32\bin (this might be a symbolic link), and one in C:\cygnus\H-
i386-cygwin32\i386-cygwin32\lib (the original). Since this DLL is
required by all Cygwin32 programs it makes sense to put one copy of it
in your C:\Windows\System directory (or equivalent) and remove the extra
copies. This will also save you headaches when the next release comes
along and you have to make sure that everything is using the latest
release of the DLL.

After doing that run the cygwin32.bat batch file included with this
distribution, or otherwise perform the following settings:

        PATH=%PATH%;C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\bin
        SET GCC_EXEC_PREFIX=C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-
                cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-961023
        SET LIBRARY_PATH=/cygnus/H-i386-cygwin32/lib/gcc-lib/i386-
                cygwin32/cygnus-2.7.2-961023:/cygnus/H-i386-cygwin32/i386-
                cygwin32/lib:/cygnus/H-i386-cygwin32/lib
        SET C_INCLUDE_PATH=/cygnus/H-i386-cygwin32/lib/gcc-lib/i386-
                cygwin32/cygnus-2.7.2-961023/include:/cygnus/H-i386-
                cygwin32/i386-cygwin32/include:/cygnus/include
        SET CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=%C_INCLUDE_PATH%

NOTE: You may need to increase the amount of environment space available
at the command prompt to get these extremely long environment variables
set. You can do this under Windows 95 by modifying the properties of the
command prompt shortcut you use under the "Program" tab, adding a
/e:#### argument to the command line COMMAND.COM, where #### is the
number of bytes to set aside for the environment.

NOTE: Under Windows 95 changes made in your autoexec.bat file will not
show up in new DOS boxes unless you reboot your machine.

Now write and compile a small test hello world program like this:

#include <stdio.h>

int
main ()
{
        printf ("Hello, world!\n");
        return 0;
}

Then compile it like this (assuming your file is called hello.c):

        gcc -o hello.exe hello.c

The compile should proceed without problems and you should be able to
run the hello program at the end. It should print "Hello, world!"
(without the quotes) to the console and then return to the command
prompt.

If you wanted a full Cygwin32 install you now have it. With this setup
(say, by adding those lines above to your autoexec.bat or global
settings) you can port a great deal of UNIX code to run under Win32
systems. No more steps are necessary.

If you are a minimalist or otherwise want to save disk space you should
continue from here. Also if you intend to use the Minimalist GNU-Win32
files to compile programs which don't use the Cygwin32 API you will need
to do some of the things mentioned below.

If the compile didn't work for some reason check very carefully that you
followed the instructions above correctly and then check whether one or
more of the files in the download got corrupted. If neither of these
seems to be the case then your system is not behaving like my system.
Try looking at the troubleshooting section later in this file, and if
none of that helps then you can email me (colin@bird.fu.is.saga-
u.ac.jp), though I can't promise I'll be a lot of help.


1.3 Separating the Win32 API Files

Mingw32 and Cygwin32 share the same set of Win32 API include files and
import libraries as included in the GCC distribution from Cygnus. In
order to use the Win32 API with a dual setup or with Mingw32 alone you
will have to separate those files from the bulk of the Cygwin32 API
files.

Make a new directory to serve as the root for the Win32 API files. I put
mine under C:\cygnus and called it win32, but you can put it where you
like and just replace later references to C:\cygnus\win32 with your own
root directory.

Move the following from C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\i386-cygwin32\include
to a new C:\cygnus\win32\include directory:

windows.h, winadvapi.h, winbase.h, wincon.h, windef.h, windowsx.h,
winerror.h, wingdi.h, winkernel.h, winnt.h, wintypes.h, winuser.h,
winversion.h, commdlg.h, ddeml.h and the Windows32 sub-directory and all
its contents.

Move the following files from C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\i386-
cygwin32\lib to a new C:\cygnus\win32\lib directory:

libadvapi32.a, libcomctl32.a, libcomdlg32.a, libctl3d32.a, libgdi32.a,
libglaux.a, libglu32.a, libimm32.a, libkernel32.a, liblz32.a,
libmapi32.a, libmfcuia32.a, libmgmtapi.a, libmpr.a, libmsacm32.a,
libnddeapi.a, libnetapi32.a, libodbc32.a, libodbccp32.a, libole32.a,
liboleaut32.a, liboledlg.a, libolepro32.a, libopengl32.a, libpenwin32.a,
libpkpd32.a, librasapi32.a, librpcdce4.a, librpcndr.a, librpcns4.a,
librpcrt4.a, libscrnsave.a, libshell32.a, libsnmp.a, libsvrapi.a,
libtapi32.a, libth32.a, libthunk32.a, liburl.a libuser32.a, libvdmdbg.a,
libversion.a, libvfw32.a, libwin32spl.a, libwinmm.a, libwinserve.a,
libwinspool.a, libwinstrm.a, libwow32.a, libwsock32.a, libwst.a.

That list is quite excessive for most basic Windows programming, which
will only require kernel32, user32, gdi32, shell32 and possibly a couple
of others like the common control and dialog libraries or advapi32. You
may not need the ODBC support, or OLE, or Pen Windows, TAPI and on and
on. Still, if you have the space and intend to use the Win32 API you
might as well keep the ones you're not sure you'll ever use around.

The lists above can also act as lists of files you can safely delete if
you are never going to use the Win32 API in your programs except that
libkernel32.a is still required even if you don't use the Win32 API
yourself. Note that this means that libkernel32.a must be on the library
path as well, even if you don't use the Win32 API. (Actually this
appears to be an artifact of the specs file supplied with Cygwin32. If
you like, and feel up to it, you can play around with the specs file and
remove the reference to kernel32.)

Here are the variable settings you need to make to allow GCC to find the
Win32 API files in their new positions:

        SET LIBRARY_PATH=%LIBRARY_PATH%:/cygnus/win32/lib
        SET C_INCLUDE_PATH=%C_INCLUDE_PATH%:/cygnus/win32/include
        SET CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=%CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH%:/cygnus/win32/include

The file win32-api.bat performs these settings. Run it after you run
cygwin32.bat (or mingw32.bat below).

At this point you should be able to compile programs that use the Win32
API, just as you could before. You might want to do a simple test
compile to find out, for example this code:

#include <windows.h>

int STDCALL
WinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmd, int nShow)
{
        MessageBox (NULL, "Test message", "Test", MB_OK);
        return 0;
}

Should compile with the following command line:
        gcc -o test.exe test.c -lkernel32 -luser32 -Wl,--subsystem,windows

It will produce a warning at link time about not finding
_WinMainCRTStartup, but this is harmless.

If you have trouble check the troubleshooting section later in this
file.


1.4 Specs

The file C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-
2.7.2-961023\specs includes a set of options and defaults for GCC,
including such things as which libraries are automatically linked into
executables and such. A different specs file is required depending on
whether you use Cygwin32 or Mingw32.

To avoid GCC accidentally using the wrong specs file move specs to
C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\i386-cygwin32\lib.

You can verify what specs file is being used by attempting a compile
with the -v option to gcc. Note that if no specs file is mentioned the
compiler will default to Cygwin32 behavior.


1.5 The Mingw32 Files

Now we can install the Mingw32 files and start making programs which
don't use cygwin.dll or the Cygwin32 API. I install my copy under a
separate directory called C:\mingw32, but you could put them wherever
you like (e.g. C:\cygnus\mingw32). Again simply replace references to
C:\mingw32 with the directory where you perform your installation.

After making the install directory copy mingw32_012.tgz to that
directory and run a command like this:
        gunzip -d mingw32_012.tgz

in that directory, followed by:
        tar xvf mingw32_012.tar

This will unpack the required files. Then you can use the following
environment variable settings (as included in mingw32.bat) to setup for
compiles using Mingw32:

        PATH=%PATH%;C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\bin
        SET GCC_EXEC_PREFIX=C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-
                cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-961023\
        SET LIBRARY_PATH=/mingw32/lib
        SET C_INCLUDE_PATH=/mingw32/include:/mingw32/include/nonansi
        SET CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=%C_INCLUDE_PATH%

The mingw32.bat file can be used the same way as the cygwin32.bat file.
Depending on which one you run you will be able to do Mingw32 compiles
or Cygwin32 compiles. Note that whichever one you use you must follow it
with an invocation of win32-api.bat so that libkernel32.a will be in the
library path.

Setup is now complete, you have complete working Mingw32 and Cygwin32
compiles available along with the bash shell, tons of UNIX-like
utilities.

If you had trouble with any of the steps above then the next section is
for you.



2. Troubleshooting Setup Problems

If you ran into trouble at any stage in the section 1 here are a few
general guidelines as well as some solutions to common problems.

2.1 Winzip, gunzip or tar Complains of Errors

Winzip may complain that it could not create a file with garbage
characters in it's name. Gunzip, gzip or tar may complain about
formatting errors. Usually this means that the downloaded file is
corrupted. As of this writing this problem was most commonly caused when
downloading the files from Geocities using Netscape Navigator for
Windows 95 or NT. A combination of a badly set MIME type at Geocities
and a bug in Netscape will corrupt files saved with "Save Link As" (and
clicking on the links would display the files as garbage text). At this
time the only solutions are to use another browser (IE, or Netscape for
UNIX or Apple systems) or to download from the Japanese mirror
(http://www.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp/~colin/gcc.html). Hopefully Geocities
will eventually fix their problem.


2.2 Compile and Link Time Problems: General Steps

First, evaluate that your environment variables are what you expect them
to be by running the SET command with no arguments (if you are using the
bash shell then the output of env might also be illuminating). Do this
immediately before you attempt a compile in the same window as the
compile.

Secondly include the '-v' option on the gcc command line. This will give
you far more information on what happens during the compile, especially
important are which specs file is being used and what include file
directories are being read, as well as the arguments to cpp and ld.

If you send me email about a problem the output of these two general
steps will be very helpful in making a diagnosis.


2.3 Cannot exec 'cpp'

On compiling you get an error message like this:

        GCC.EXE: installation problem, cannot exec `cpp': No such file
        or directory
        GCC.EXE: Internal compiler error: program cpp got fatal signal 127

This means more or less what it says. The program cpp is the C
preprocessor (it strips comments and interprets all those lines
beginning in '#') and running it is the first step in compiling a C or
C++ program. The problem here is that GCC.EXE cannot find CPP.EXE.
Normally CPP.EXE is in the directory C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-
lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-961023\. If the file is there then
probably the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX environment variable is not correctly set.


2.4 Can't Find Include Files

You get an error like this:

        hello.c:2: No include path in which to find stdio.h

This, again, means what it says (more or less). The compiler cannot find
the file stdio.h which is #included in the source file hello.c at line
2. Of course the particular file names may differ in your case. If this
is not simply a case of including a really non-existent file or
misspelling the file name then probably your C_INCLUDE_PATH or
CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH environment variable is wrong. (If not, see "But the
environment variables are right" below.)


2.5 Can't Find Libraries

At link time you get an error like this:

        ld: cannot open -lkernel32: No such file or directory

This one is a bit cryptic, mainly because the name of the file that
can't be opened is not "-lkernel32" but "libkernel32.a". "-lname" is the
ld command line syntax for linking the library named "libname.a". So
basically this error is saying it can't find libkernel32.a (or whatever
library matches the error you got). If you weren't trying to manually
link in a library that doesn't exist or was misspelled (by accidentally
including the 'lib' or '.a' on the command line for example) then
probably your LIBRARY_PATH environment variable is wrong. (If not, see
"But the environment variables are right" below.)


2.6 But the Environment Variables are Right!

You had one of the problems with not finding include files or libraries
but the environment variables all seem to be pointing at the right
places and the files are all there.

If you installed on a drive other than C: drive this may be your
problem. The Cygwin DLL, and thus all the basic compiler tools,
automatically map C: drive to (UNIX-style) '/'. Thus /cygnus is actually
C:\cygnus. There are a few ways to fix this (without reinstalling on C:
drive):

    - Map your actual install directory to /cygnus using mount
      (mount.exe is included with the Cygnus distribution). Simply
      type "mount D:\mydir /cygnus" (assuming you installed in the
      directory \mydir on D: drive). Similar tricks can be used for
      other directories which you may have installed on other drives.

    - Change the mount of C: to / to the actual install drive. This is
      possible by using the registry editor (regedit) included with
      Windows. Start the editor and go to the key (or folder) "My
      Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cygnus Support\CYGWIN.DLL
      setup\b15.0\mounts". Under this key there are several numbered
      keys. One of them will have the variables "native" set to "c:" and
      "unix" set to "/". Change the value of "native" to whatever drive
      you did your install on and everything should be fixed. NOTE: You
      should probably do this after a fresh boot with no Cygnus based
      programs running.


2.7 Unresolved References to _impure_ptr and/or _ctype_ etc.

At link time your code produces unresolved references to _impure_ptr,
_ctype_ and/or _errno, among others.

This is the result of using the Cygwin header files but linking against
the Mingw32 libraries. I have hopefully managed to fix the bug that used
to cause this problem on any dual installation, but perhaps I haven't.
To check you can run gcc with the -v option and see if the list of
directories searched for include files contains any include directories
with Cygwin headers in them. If everything is working correctly you
should only see the directories on your C_INCLUDE_PATH in this list.

If you have this problem then you may have to modify the Mingw32 specs
file, specifically the part that says:

*cpp:
%{posix:-D_POSIX_SOURCE} -iprefix /mingw32/include/

These are options that get passed to the C preprocessor by gcc. Consult
the documentation for cpp and try options other than -iprefix. You may
have to use -nostdinc and/or -nostdinc++ plus -I options to get the
correct behavior.


2.8 My Program Doesn't Print Any Output OR My Windows Program Creates
    A Console Window

Your console application runs, but doesn't print any output, or your GUI
application runs fine, but always creates an extra console window when
run from Explorer or by double clicking on an icon.

These are basically two sides of the same coin. You have created a GUI
(or console) application when you meant to create a console (or GUI)
application. By default gcc creates console applications. If you make a
windows GUI application with a WinMain and all that you will still get a
console application if you don't tell gcc what to do at link time. The
relevant options are "-windows" "-Wl,--subsystem,windows" or "-Wl,--
subsystem,console". The first two, if used on a gcc link line, will
create a proper GUI application. The last will make sure you are making
a console application.



3. Optimizing and Reducing Disk Space Usage

There are still vast amounts of disk space used by the Cygwin32
installation on your hard-drive, and much of it can be removed while
still maintaining a fully functional compiler system. The following
sections point out which files you actually need for certain tasks, so
that you won't delete them.


3.1 Bare Minimum

For C only, Mingw32 compiles which don't use the Win32 API, and if you
don't want to produce DLLs or do debugging with any of the GNU tools the
list of files required is as follows:

In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\bin:
        ar.exe, as.exe, gcc.exe, ld.exe

In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-
961023:
        cc1.exe, cpp.exe, libgcc.a

In C:\cygnus\win32\lib:
        libkernel32.a

Plus all the files in C:\mingw32\lib and C:\mingw32\include and their
subdirectories.


3.2 C++ Support

To add C++ Support to the above the following extra files are required:

In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-
961023:
        cc1plus.exe

Note that this does not include support for the standard C++ libraries
(only the C run time libraries) or for iostreams. That support is still
only available with the Cygwin32 API.


3.3 Extra Utilities of Extreme Usefulness

Even if you do not use the bash shell or UNIX utilities in general some
of the utilities in C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\bin are extremely useful
for debugging and probably shouldn't be deleted if you intend to do any
actual programming using the system.

These include:
        dlltool.exe, gdb.exe, nm.exe, and strip.exe.


3.4 Jam

Jam is a make replacement program that I use pretty much exclusively,
which is why you don't find any Makefile, makefile, makefile.mk or all
that in the stuff that I do. You do find jamfiles and the occaisional
mk.bat file. The executable of Jam is only 80 KB and the program is
incredibly useful, so I would encourage you do download the special
Mingw32 version and check it out. The Mingw32 version has built in rules
for adding resources, building DLLs and import libraries as well as
normal C and C++ files. The source code is, of course, freely available.

The actual point of this section though, is to point out that to use Jam
you need not only the Jam executable but also rm.exe from the Cygwin
distribution. You also might want to download rcl.exe and res2coff.exe
as these are the helper programs Jam expects to use for resource script
handling.


4. Legalities

All of the code in the Mingw32 package is available as public domain
source. You may use and modify the code as you like. Of course I
encourage you to write software which is free, either public domain or
under the GNU Public License for example, but that is up to you. Linking
with the libraries included with Mingw32 similarly does not impose any
licensing restrictions on your code or binaries.

The library libgcc.a, which is linked into all code produced with GCC,
is under a special version of the LGPL (as far as I know, you should
check for yourself) which allows the distribution of programs which are
simply linked with unmodified versions of libgcc.a with no licensing
restrictions.

Thus, using Mingw32, you should be able to produce code with no
licensing restrictions imposed by use of the compiler or libraries. The
Cygwin32 API, and the GNU libraries are another matter and you should
consult their license agreements.

Again I must stress that I am not a lawyer and the above statements only
reflect my personal understanding of the situation. You would be well
advised to consult the actual text of the appropriate copyright notices
and license agreements if you have any concerns.


5. Support

First of all, the Mingw32 code is supplied AS IS with NO WARRANTY either
EXPRESS or IMPLIED.

There is also no support staff standing by to take your calls. There
are, however, a few people, including myself, using Mingw32 who might be
able to help you. If you have problems you can email me at
colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp and I will try to get back to you. No
guarantees, but I will do my best.


6. Suggestions and Contributions

If you find a bug in the Mingw32 files themselves then feel free to
report it, or even better to supply a fix, by emailing me at
colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp. Any fixes I receive will probably go into
the next release, and if they seem high-priority I may put the patched
files on my web page until I can make a complete release. Please note
that if you supply code it must be in the public domain or I cannot
include it in Mingw32. Please attach an appropriate legal message to the
code or otherwise make sure that there are no copyright issues. Of
course if you just suggest a possible method for solving a problem or
point out a bug then there should be no need for all that.

Note that the Win32 API header files are not actually part of the
Mingw32 package. I know there are many bugs and omissions, and I try to
keep informed about them, so I do appreciate mail pointing them out.
However I can't fix these problems at the source. You should send email
to Scott Christley (the author of the GPL windows32-api) or possibly to
Cygnus. Sending email to me might get me to mention it on my homepage or
fix it in my personal copy of the header files, but that's about it
(sorry).

Aside from bug reports, suggestions for improvements, testing of the
header files and otherwise praise or criticism is all welcome in my
inbox.

Good luck,
Colin Peters (colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp)