INSTALL.W64

   1
   2  INSTALLATION ON THE WIN64 PLATFORM
   3  ----------------------------------
   4
   5  Caveat lector
   6  -------------
   7
   8  As of moment of this writing Win64 support is classified "initial"
   9  for the following reasons.
  10
  11  - No assembler modules are engaged upon initial 0.9.8 release.
  12  - API might change within 0.9.8 life-span, *but* in a manner which
  13    doesn't break backward binary compatibility. Or in other words,
  14    application programs compiled with initial 0.9.8 headers will
  15    be expected to work with future minor release .DLL without need
  16    to re-compile, even if future minor release features modified API.
  17  - Above mentioned API modifications have everything to do with
  18    elimination of a number of limitations, which are normally
  19    considered inherent to 32-bit platforms. Which in turn is why they
  20    are treated as limitations on 64-bit platform such as Win64:-)
  21    The current list comprises [but not necessarily limited to]:
  22
  23    - null-terminated strings may not be longer than 2G-1 bytes,
  24      longer strings are treated as zero-length;
  25    - dynamically and *internally* allocated chunks can't be larger
  26      than 2G-1 bytes;
  27    - inability to encrypt/decrypt chunks of data larger than 4GB
  28      [it's possibly to *hash* chunks of arbitrary size through];
  29
  30    Neither of these is actually big deal and hardly encountered
  31    in real-life applications.
  32
  33  Compiling procedure
  34  -------------------
  35
  36  You will need Perl. You can run under Cygwin or you can download
  37  ActiveState Perl from http://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl.
  38
  39  You will need Microsoft Platform SDK, available for download at
  40  http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/platformsdk/sdkupdate/. As per
  41  April 2005 Platform SDK is equipped with Win64 compilers, as well
  42  as assemblers, but it might change in the future.
  43
  44  To build for Win64/x64:
  45
  46  > perl Configure VC-WIN64A
  47  > ms\do_win64a
  48  > nmake -f ms\ntdll.mak
  49  > cd out32dll
  50  > ..\ms\test
  51
  52  To build for Win64/IA64:
  53
  54  > perl Configure VC-WIN64I
  55  > ms\do_win64i
  56  > nmake -f ms\ntdll.mak
  57  > cd out32dll
  58  > ..\ms\test
  59
  60  Naturally test-suite itself has to be executed on the target platform.
  61
  62  Installation
  63  ------------
  64
  65  TBD, for now see INSTALL.W32.
  66