List of Questions

1. GUI applications for Win32 compile, but just crashes when I try to run them.
2. The precompiled Jump Start Applications complain about missing DLLs.
3. Problems linking GUI applications under Win32.
4. Can not compile in debug mode with the Mini Distribution.
5. GUI applications on Win32 crashes at startup.

Answers and Comments

1. GUI applications for Win32 compile, but just crashes when I try to run them.

   This might be an indication that there is a mix-up between the new Diffpack libraries and older versions. Make sure that the include and library path lists in Visual C++ only refer the latest version of Diffpack. It has also been reported that on some systems the Diffpack file paths should be put on top of the list to avoid conflicts with other third-party software.

   Although the installation procedure for Win32 will register the include and library paths for use in Visual C++, it is not capable of removing previous entries from older Diffpack installations.

2. The precompiled Jump Start Applications complain about missing DLLs.

   In order to run the precompiled JSAs without having Diffpack (either the complete product or the Mini Distribution) installed, you will need to download and install the Diffpack 3.0 JSA System Kit.

3. Problems linking GUI applications under Win32.

   When using the Diffpack GUI under Win32, it is simplest to start out with the Application Templates located in NO\doc. If you are creating the VC++ workspace yourself, look at the ReadMe document in your Diffpack distribution. Please make sure that you omit linking to nafxcw.lib (or nafxcwd.lib in Debug mode), and that you are using the link option subsystem:windows .

4. Can not compile in debug mode with the Mini Distribution.

   The Mini Distribution comes only with optimized libraries. That is, on Unix you will need to compile with Make MODE=opt, whereas Win32 users need to select Release mode for their application projects. This is done by choosing the Release mode from the dialog box that appears when selecting the "Set Active Configuration..." option from the "Build" menu in Visual C++.

5. GUI applications on Win32 crashes at startup.

   The GUI applications needs 16K colors or more. Attempts at starting such applications on displays with less colors (e.g. 256 colors) will lead to aborted execution before the GUI window appears. To change the display settings, double-click the "Display" icon in the Control Panel (Start->Settings->Control Panel). Click the tab settings and adjust the number of colors from the pull-down menu.