Re: msvc and vista fun

Andrew Dunstan wrote:

> On a somewhat related note, I have had spectacular lack of success in
> getting either MSVC or MinGW builds to work on Vista - so much so that I
> have currently abandoned my attempts on that platform and I resorted to
> resuscitating an old XP box for testing. Following some advice from
> Magnus, I added ACLs to the build root for both an admin and a non-admin
> user (cacls buildroot /E /T /G AdminUser:C and similarly for a non-admin
> user) . I can build as the admin user but when I come to run initdb it
> fails, complaining that it can't find the postgres executable.

Yeah, I ran into that problem as well. I'll look at my Vista box when
I'm in the office tomorrow and see if I can figure out what hack fixed
it for me.

If I then
> switch to the non-admin user, it can run initdb just fine. However, that
> user can't build, because it gets a mysterious failure from mt.exe.
> MinGW is even worse - it says it can't run gcc because it can't run
> cc1.exe (IIRC), so it fails at the configure stage! All of this has cost
> me quite a few hours in the last week, with very little to show for it.

And that one...

> Perhaps someone would like to tell me how I can remedy these problems.
> More importantly, this should be in an FAQ or some such. Also, I would
> like to know if we have really tested out on Vista the privilege
> surrendering code that is is supposed to work in Windows. It looks to me
> like it might not be working.

What makes you say that?

> If we can make progress on these issues then I'll be happy. If not, I
> think we need to look carefully at what we say we can support, and what
> we declare to be still experimental.

Lack of completely reliable buildfarm support for MSVC or trouble
setting up a buildenv doesn't mean we cannot support a platform - it
just means we need o be extra vigilent to ensure that regresssion tests
etc. do actually pass (though that level of failure would be visible on
the BF I would hope - it certainly has been until now).

Regards, Dave