Can anyone come up with reasonable phrasing for the following?
Here is the situation that I want to document.
To build spamc you can use any version of Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 or a later version of Microsoft Visual Studio.
There is a free (as in beer) set of tools that will let you build spamc without having to purchase Microsoft Visual Studio.
The free alternative requires that you:
1) Download and install Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 from http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/
2) Download and install the Core Platform SDK from
http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/platformsdk/sdkupdate/
That web page requires you to use Internet Explorer and to accept installation of an ActiveX control.
3) Set the environment variables PATH, INCLUDE and LIB to include the bin, include, and lib directories where you installed those two.
4) Get a copy of nmake.exe which you place in a directory that is in your Path.
There two ways to get and use nmake.exe. A recent version, which will just work, is part of the .NET Framework 1.1 SDK. Getting it requires you to first install the .NET Framework 1.1 Runtime, which is over a 100 Mbyte download, and then download another 130 Mbyte to install the SDK from http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/downloads/updates/ which will leave nmake.exe in the SDK bin directory.
It is easier to download but harder to use an old version of nmake.exe from
http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/Nmake15.exe
Run it to create the files nmake.exe and nmake.err, which should both be placed in a directory that is in the Path, such as \perl\bin.
That old version of nmake cannot handle spaces in pathnames. To build spamc with it, you have to make sure that there are no spaces in the PATH, INCLUDE, and LIB environment variables. That requires that you either install the Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 and the Core Platform SDK somewhere other than their default locations under C:\Program Files, or that you use the short pathname equivalents in PATH, INCLUDE, and LIB.
Ok, if anyone wants to wordsmith that before I figure out how to pare it down while leaving it clear, please feel free. I need to do some sleeping and some work at my day job before i can get to this again.
-- sidney
