Well, okay. There's Visual Studio 2008 and Embarcadero Delphi/Studio that are both able to create 64-bits .NET applications for Vista. And of course a lot of 32-bits applications will run on 64-bits Vista. If not, it's always possible to install VMWare to create a virtual 32-bits Windows XP system to run 32-bits applications. So, plenty of options.
But what I would like to see is a list of true 64-bits applications for Windows Vista and better. So if you know any useful 64-bits product, please share! (Especially compilers that generate native 64-bits code.)
Tools would basically be anything that would make development a bit easier. Thus, debugging tools, image processing tools to create icons and bitmaps, hex editors to check the contents of binary files, XML editors to change XML files, etc. The tools from SysInternals, for example, seem to provide 64-bits versions or even support 64-bits systems natively. But how about all those other editors, viewers, browsers and other tools that we developers like to use? A 64-bits version of the Norton Commander/Midnight Commander or other file managers would be nice too.
And with compilers, how about COBOL/ForTran/ADA/SmallTalk/Lisp/Whatever compiler/languages for Vista? I would just like to see a complete list of anything useful for 64-bits development.
Both Visual C++ 9 (2008) and gcc know to create 64 bit native code.
arguably not a lang, but mySQL is available as Win64
Here are some examples of open source tools that have been ported to Win64:
Languages/Compilers/VMs:
LUA
LuaJIT (beta)
Python
Factor
OCAML (generates native 64bits code)
MinGW 64 (GCC)
Clozure Common Lisp (thru MinGW 64)
Sun Hotspot JVM (JAVA)
Other Useful tools:
Notepad 2
Firefox/XulRunner/SpiderMonkey
Notes:
With the advance of MinGW 64, we can hope that more and more projects will support Win64 soon (I vote for GTK/Gimp, Squeak VM, Erlang HIPE and CLISP).
Soon, there should be the javascript V8 engine from Google.
There is no port of any one of Norton/Midnight/Total Commander to 64 bits.
What about the following:
Minefield (Firefox) - this is a beta version of Firefox
SQL Server 2005
TortoiseSvn - works well, and you can still use it if other team-members
are running the 32-bit version
SmartFTP
Paint.NET
I hope you'll take a look at Hamilton C shell 2009 (link is in my profile), which recreates the UNIX C shell and all the usual suspects including grep, fgrep, ls, mv, cp, rm, head, tail, more, diff, strings, tar, etc., all completely from scratch on Windows. I just released a new version (complete with a brand-new 64-bit build) for Vista this summer which just got a great review. There's a free demo version if you'd like to try before buying. And, yes, I am a real person and I really will answer any questions you might have.
You could try PowerPad. It's a great text-editor that has a 64-bit version.
Related
I was wondering if there is any Borland cross compiler that can make my windows code work on linux without wine.I'm using winxp with delphi 7. I was always wondering if it was possible to code same tool I coded in windows , again in Linux and how is it possible to code same tool by using pascal code in linux.Thanks
The best solution is Lazarus, the delphi-like GUI for Free Pascal. If you were using "pure" vcl, without Windows internales or any special add-ons the migration will be a pice of cake :)
Take a look here: http://lazarus.freepascal.org
BTW - Lazarus and FPC are true mulitplatform - you can compile code for Linux, Windows, MacOS and more with the same codebase :)
Your only option, if you want a Borland Delphi cross-compiler, is CrossKylix. This isn't a real cross-compiler. Instead you run the Kylix compiler for Linux under an emulated Linux environment.
Note that you'll be forced to use CLX rather than VCL and that Kylix is well and truly dead nowadays. Personally I think Wine is probably an easier and better option.
First of all, it all depends on what system functions you used in your programm. In most cases, there will be no possibility to cross-compile it under linux.
But, in some cases Borland Kylix can help, but, afaik, it's almost dead now.
Delphi 10.2 Tokyo supports Linux 64-bit Native Code Compilations.
To get some preview screenshots, click this post:
https://helloacm.com/delphi-compiles-code-to-linux-64-bit-server/
I have been asked to write a (very) simple program for a set of Windows machines (XP I think) - so simple that the choice of language isn't really an issue. However, I want to be able to distribute a binary/script that will run straight away on the Windows machine, without the need to pre-install any interpretor or virtual machine. I'm developing on a Linux machine and I have no idea what languages Windows supports 'out of the box'. Can anyone advise?
For example
Perl would be great but I don't believe windows machines come with Perl pre-installed? Asking the user to install Perl to use my script is not acceptable.
I believe Python has the same problem? (although maybe I can use the PyInstaller? -- as in this question)
Likewise Java? Is the virtual machine pre-installed on most Windows distributions? (I understand it got removed after a dispute with Sun Microsystems?)
The only option I can think of so far is
c/c++ with MinGW cross-compiler.
While I'm happy to write the code in c++, I wanted to check my language options first.
The only scripting languages supported out of the box are the batch interpreter, vbscript and jscript. Other than that you are into compiled languages. A good option could be C# but make sure you target the .net version that shipped with XP.
Delphi and Lazarus/FreePascal generate native applications that don't even need on MSVCRT
Some of the other systems have requirements on relatively new MSVCRT versions that might be a burden on older windows versions.
However recent Lazarus and Delphi versions stop supporting windows NT4 and Win9x, with win2000 in a gray area (not supported but works afaik)
Having an internal win32/64 linker makes it also an excellent choice for crosscompiling from *nix to Windows.
I don't think that Java comes pre-installed on Windows.
I'm not using Windows for some years now, but if I correctly remember you can develop scripts with VBScript or JScript and deploy them without need for clients to install anything.
Any language which compiled to pure native assembly (without special run-time dependencies) should be fine. For example: many C variations (but not all), Microsoft Visual C++, Microsoft Visual Basic 6, OCaml, Haskell and more.
Requiring the .NET Framework (which gives you also C#, VB.NET and F#) is reasonable, and also JVM is pretty standard (and so you get Java, Closure and Scala).
I was wondering is there a free Windows version of GCC.
I know there is minigw and something else but I don't know how to use them.
Sorry if this should be on SU.
The main choices are either MinGW or CygWin.
CygWin is a more complete UNIX-like environment than MinGW as it offers quite a lot of tools over and above development stuff. Even to the point of a full X-Windows server so you can develop software that'll run on both UNIX-like systems and Windows.
The installer is good but I would suggest installing everything even if you think you don't need it. Disk space is cheap and I've had problems in the past trying to get stuff going on partial installs (whether 1.7, or even earlier, fixes this, I don't know - I always do full installs).
However, it relies on the CygWin UNIX emulation DLL which, if I remember rightly, has restrictions for non-free software.
MinGW is more concentrated on the development tools. It generates native Windows applications rather than running under a emulation DLL like CygWin.
It used to be difficult to install with having to do MinGW, MSYS and others separately but it's come a long since then and has an easy graphical installer.
I believe it can do graphical applications using native Windows calls rather than via X-Windows, since it just links to the normal Windows runtimes.
If you want to know how to use either of them, you really have to look through the docs found at those links I provided - check the Documentation link on the left for MinGW (particularly Getting started) or the CygWin FAQ.
As for GUIs for development, I've never used one for CygWin - I'm old enough that I remember mark sense cards so I'm not scared of the command line interface :-).
I used Eclipse with CDT running over MinGW and wasn't that impressed although admittedly that was an early version. Don't get me wrong Eclipse is a brilliant tool and we use it for both Java and Linux/C development, I just had a lot of troubles with Eclipse/CDT under Windows.
Code::Blocks, on the other hand, was absolutely brilliant but you should check them all out to see which one suits you best. As I said, the last time I looked was about five years ago, an eternity in the IT world.
I am a bit late, but since the question may still arise...
gcc for Windows (including Ada, C, C++ and Fortran compilers) can be obtained from MinGW-builds on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/files/host-windows/releases/
As of august 2013, there are 32 and 64 bits versions of gcc-4.8.1.
I want to make an easy to deploy Windows application and was was wondering which programming systems can create totally self contained Windows .exe files?
As a plus, if the same can be done with MacOSX and Linux from the same source this would be a bonus. I took a look at Realbasic but they have since abandoned the single .exe concept.
update: i am looking for something that can run from Windows XP up to Windows 7, no matter what version of .NET is installed. Is this even possible?
Delphi compiles to one executable, and generates native windows executables. So no dependencies to any kind of framework. If you use Free Pascal (fpc) and the Lazarus IDE, you could even develop for Linux and Apple from the same source.
If your using external dll's this would become a bit more tricky, but you could pack them up in your resource file and still maintain the one exe property.
Update 2020: since #Vassilis & #Marco van der Voort commented on this, I would like to update my old andswer and add that go is a very good way to make self-contained executables. Even crossplatform compilation is realy simple.
You can certainly do this with C/C++. Technically the runtime libraries are required, but they should already be installed on any windows, mac or linux system.
With .NET you can compile to an EXE, but of course the .NET framework is required. For newer versions of windows it should be installed by default, but on older versions (XP or older?) it may or may not be there. And of course you couldn't expect mono to be there by default on linux or mac either.
For Windows the following languages are viable:
C (MS, gcc)
C++ (MS, g++, Digital Mars)
D (Digital Mars)
Delphi (Embarcadero??? how do you spell that? just trips off the tongue doesn't it?)
Fortran (Intel, Salford Software)
Visual Basic 6 (MS)
Lua (you'll need a special tool to do it, but it is doable)
C#, VB.Net, F#, J#, etc (assuming that you don't mind using .Net technology)
You can use Tcl/tk. The technology you should research is a "starpack", which combines a runtime executable (a starkit) with a platform-specific runtime (a "tclkit") to create a single-file executable. It's remarkable in the fact that it's not just compiled code, but an entire self-contained virtual filesystem that can include images, sound, data, etc.
This same technology works for many platforms from the same code base. The only thing that is different is the platform-specific runtime. You can even "cross compile" in that you can copy the runtime for multiple platforms onto your dev box and then build starpacks for each platform without having to actually be on each platform.
Tcl can do this, especially through producing starpacks. They can be produced for all platforms from the same code. Note that this also includes all the necessary runtime libraries (except for things like the C library, but you don't want to make that static under normal circumstances).
JavaFX 2.2 supports that. It allows creation of self-contained applications targeting Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
Please follow this link for more information: http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/deployment/self-contained-packaging.htm.
I would recommend taking a look at AutoIt. It is an easy-to-use scripting language that will compile into an exe, so there are no runtimes needed. This would be for windows only though.
http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.shtml
From the website:
AutoIt v3 is a freeware BASIC-like
scripting language designed for
automating the Windows GUI and general
scripting. ... AutoIt is also very small,
self-contained and will run on all
versions of Windows out-of-the-box
with no annoying "runtimes" required!
c/c++
purebasic
delphi
vb6
i hope this help :)
Here's a good source for a number of basic-like programming languages that build small stand-alone EXEs. Some are cross-platform for Windows and Linux:
www.basic.mindteq.com
You can use Liberty Basic which is easy and cheap, you can easily make stand alone programs for windows but not possible to transfer to MacOS or Linux.
You can do this for Windows with .NET languages using ILMerge
ILMerge is a utility for merging multiple .NET assemblies into a single .NET assembly. It works on executables and DLLs alike and comes with several options for controlling the processing and format of the output. See the accompanying documentation for details.
However:
Currently, ILMerge works only on Windows-based platforms. It does not yet support Rotor or Mono.
QBasic can :-)
I wrote a few command line tools using it!
I compiled an 64bit binary of ioquake3 and an SDL binary to go along with it and I noticed on Windows 7 64bit, operation, while relatively stable, it doesn't have top notch performance.
An equivalent binary on 64bit Debian, runs definitely faster, and perfectly stable.
And I'm thinking: with all the major manufacturers still dispatching 32bit binaries predominately - major exception I can think of is Autodesk's Autocad - is Windows still immature on its 64bit libraries?
I would answer no. 64-bit support in the operating system has been around since Windows XP was released in 64-bit edition, although pre-vista drivers and 3rd-party software were very much experimental. Windows is a fully capable 64-bit operating system.
However, you have to remember that Microsoft's success is built on the fact Windows runs pretty well on any x86 based processor with any other combination of hardware, thanks to HAL. When 64-bit XP first came out drivers were scare in their 64-bit form until traction was gained. As you've observed, most manufacturers still develop 32-bit applications only for Windows; Visual Studio and Microsoft Office proof that it is not only 3rd-party vendors. Why? Ease. Take a walk around any pc-shop and you'll hear all sorts of praise about 64-bit cpus in todays modern laptops but what you'll actually find is that their OSes are shipped 32-bit. It's a standard and it works on 32-bit.
Linux, by contrast, has always been a programmer's platform. Most distributions support at least i386 and "x86-64"; some support ppc architectures. The kernel can be built upon just about every chipset known to man. Why? Linux isn't constrained by needing commercial product stability to survive and is often a researcher's platform. Not only that, but even if the core devs had no interest in porting it, you could. Much of the rest of the gnu system is written for portability so it's trivial to compile elsewhere. And not writing your code in a portable manner isn't considered good etiquette.
Take a look at Flash support in linux - 64-bit alpha. Even Mozilla provide 32-bit only builds although they allow distributors to build official 64-bit versions. Skype is 32-bit only.
Basically, many software developers don't need to support 64-bit yet, or don't see it that way at least. As such, I'd say both operating systems are mature - the eco system around them is what is different.
While Windows is slowly making strides towards 64-bitness, one could easily say that Linux has a massive, perhaps even crushing, advantage due to the wide variety of platforms that it has been made to work on. Issues that Windows developers are only coming across now have been long solved under Linux (although of course there are Linux developers who choose to ignore these solutions; their code tends to be brittle, and sometimes non-portable).
Define "relatively stable"?
All Windows API calls end up in the to the same 64 bit functions if you are running a x64 bit Windows, so there is no stability difference at all.
You should profile. Most certainly something inside the user space application is causing the performance degregation, not the kernel.
Are you sure that you are running the same optimization level when compiling the 64 bit binary? And what compiler did you use?