GCJ 3.1: will generated code run on almost all versions of Windows?

GCJ 3.1: will generated code run on almost all versions of Windows?

[Jocelyn Paine]

I'm writing a Java application which is to run on Windows, and I'd like to
give away copies at a conference for people to try out. The audience won't
know anything about installing their own JVMs etc., so using GCJ 3.1 to
generate a single .exe file that can be installed and run without needing
anything else seems ideal.

I won't know in advance which Windows users will have: 95, 98, NT, 2000,
XP or ME. As long as I avoid Windows NT 3.5 and below, and 3.11 (as
indicated by the MinGW page at http://www.mingw.org/mingwfaq.shtml), will
I really be able to generate just one file, a .exe, and guarantee it will
run on any of these? I don't know why, but somehow, the name 'Microsoft'
stirs suspicions that things can't be so easy.

(I'm actually writing the app in Per Bothner's Kawa dialect of Scheme,
which compiles to JVM code. That shouldn't matter, though, I hope.)

Jocelyn Paine
http://www.ifs.org.uk/~popx/
+44 (0)7768 534 091 

Re: GCJ 3.1: will generated code run on almost all versions of Windows?

[Anthony Green]

On Tue, 2002-04-30 at 02:37, Jocelyn Paine wrote:
> I won't know in advance which Windows users will have: 95, 98, NT, 2000,
> XP or ME. As long as I avoid Windows NT 3.5 and below, and 3.11 (as
> indicated by the MinGW page at http://www.mingw.org/mingwfaq.shtml), will
> I really be able to generate just one file, a .exe, and guarantee it will
> run on any of these? 

You'll want to make sure that your app doesn't use any facilities which
aren't supported by gcj.  My suggestion it to try building it under
Linux before investing the time to get it going under Windows.

There are some tricks to static linking, but there are a number of
people on list who will be happy to give advice.

> (I'm actually writing the app in Per Bothner's Kawa dialect of Scheme,
> which compiles to JVM code. That shouldn't matter, though, I hope.)

I think this should be ok.

AG

Re: GCJ 3.1: will generated code run on almost all versions of Windows?

[Adam King]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2002 at 10:37:15AM +0100, Jocelyn Paine wrote:
> so using GCJ 3.1 to
> generate a single .exe file that can be installed and run without needing
> anything else seems ideal.

This is exactly the reason why my company is currently using the mingw port
of gcj.  We have 200k+ lines of java, 1000+ classes and 50k of C++ code
all compiling into a single exe.  It's great!

> I won't know in advance which Windows users will have: 95, 98, NT, 2000,
> XP or ME. 

We've tested the generated exe under 98, 98SE, ME, NT4.0 and 2000.  It
works fine under all of them. We will test it with XP next week.  

> I really be able to generate just one file, a .exe, and guarantee it will
> run on any of these? 

I don't think it can be guaranteed, but it should work.  Our exe does
exercise almost the entire Java API and there have been very few bugs.
Those that I have found have been easy to fix.  

	Adam

Re: GCJ 3.1: will generated code run on almost all versions of Windows?

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "Adam" == Adam King <aking@dreammechanics.com> writes:

Adam> This is exactly the reason why my company is currently using the
Adam> mingw port of gcj.  We have 200k+ lines of java, 1000+ classes
Adam> and 50k of C++ code all compiling into a single exe.  It's
Adam> great!

Wow!  Care to write up a gcj success story for the web page?

Tom

Re: GCJ 3.1: will generated code run on almost all versions of Windows?

[Adam Megacz]

Adam King <aking@dreammechanics.com> writes:
> > I won't know in advance which Windows users will have: 95, 98, NT, 2000,
> > XP or ME. 

> We've tested the generated exe under 98, 98SE, ME, NT4.0 and 2000.  It
> works fine under all of them.

gcj-win32 binaries will work with Win95 OSR2 and every OS shipped by
microsoft thereafter.

The "original" Win95 lacks a DLL that gcj-mingw needs (MSVCRT.DLL),
however, virtually every commercial app built with MSVC++ ships with
this DLL (including office), so virtually all copies of the original
Win95 will work as well -- about the only situation where it wouldn't
work is if nothing else had been installed on the machine.


> We will test it with XP next week.

I've tried it. It works fine.


> > I really be able to generate just one file, a .exe, and guarantee it will
> > run on any of these? 

> I don't think it can be guaranteed, but it should work.  Our exe does
> exercise almost the entire Java API and there have been very few bugs.
> Those that I have found have been easy to fix.  

Have you gotten MessageBox()es with "GC: Thread Stack Pointer out of
range" at all? I get these on occasion, although XWT does some pretty
hairy CNI stuff, so it may be my fault.

  - a


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