Visual Studio 2005 or 2008?

Hi,

I in the progress to buy Visual Studio and I want to know of you will support Visual Studio 2008 when it comes?
I think Visual Studio 2008 will be on the market early next year.

Was wondering how you will do with DLL Wizard for 2005, if you will support
the DLL Wizard for both 2005 and 2008 or only for one if the versions?

The best thing if you can get Flexsim to work with the Express version of Visual Studio C++ 20005 and 2008.

Lars-Olof

We hope to make the next release compatible with Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition, which is already available from Microsoft's web site. Since it is already available and the current version isn't compatible with 2005 Express Edition, we will simply skip support for 2005 express edition and work on getting it compatible with 2008 (although if it is easy to support 2005 express edition, we may put that in).

We haven't discussed yet how we plan on maintaining the DLL wizards. I would assume we will make a DLL wizard for 2008, but I don't know if we plan on continued maintenance of the 2005 wizard.

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for the answer.

I will wait to buy Visual Studio until 2008 is released or you get the 2008 Express Version to work with Flexsim.

Do you know if your Wizard is working in Express Version of Visual Studio?

Lars-Olof

No, I don't know if it works in 2005 Express Edition.

Hi Anthony,

I installed Visual C++ 2005 Express and the wizard.
The wizard is not working in the Express version

What I found when I was looking around on the net is that the Express version is not supporting Add-In like your Wizard.
I am not sure how it is for the 2008 version.

Lars-Olof

Hi Lars-Olof, (and Anthony)

I was curious, can you open a 2003 or 2005 solution in 2008? And as we are creating DLL's, have you tested already if we can create the DLL with the express version? I think that theoretically it shouldn' be a problem.

I was planning to test it myself next week or so (if I can find a spare hour somewhere) but if somebody else already has done it, that would save some time.

Regards,

Steven

Hi Steven,

I have not yet tested 2008.

What I have tested is to take a 2003 (standard version) and then open that one in 2005 (professional version), there where no problem.

Next thing I did was to take the project from 2005 (professional) and open that one in 2005 Express, no problem.

So the answer is that you can build DLL in the express version and also take the whole project from a standard or professional version of 2005 and be used in the express version of 2005.

I will test to take the project from expression version to my installation at home. You will have an answer tomorrow.

Lars-Olof

Hi Lars-Olof,

That sounds very promising. Thanks for testing and the quick reply.


Steven

Hi,

Have now tested my project from work on my home computer and there where no problem to create the DLL.

You can move a project between the Express version and a regular version without any problem.
In my case between Visual C++ 2005 Express and Visual Studio 2005 Pro.

It should not be any problem to use the project from 2005 in 2008. I went from 2003 to 2005 without any problems.
I have not tested 2008 Express.

Lars-Olof

Hi,

I have now tested Visual C++ 2008 Express and I could compile a DLL.

I used the project from 2005 and used that in 2008, no problem.
The only thing that is different from 2005 and 2008 is that in 2008 Express glaux.lib is not included anymore. I removed glaux.lib from the project and compiled and run the DLL without any problems.
If glaux.lib is included in Standard/Pro version of 2008 I do not know.

Anthony:
Is glaux.lib used by Flexsim? Can it be removed, when creating DLL?

Lars-Olof

There was some old code in the engine that used glaux.lib, but we don't use it anymore and have taken the linkage out for the next version.

Now it shows again, that I am not a programmer.

What do I need to do to remove the glaux.lib from my project.
Where can I find the code to delete it?

Thanks in advance ...

He Tom,

The fact that you don't know your way around visual studio doesn't mean you are not a programmer. If you work in simulation as long as you do, you must be a programmer (and a good one) otherwise you would have been fired long ago


Concerning your problem of the glaux.lib, maybe there are other ways but this is what I know.
Open visual studio with your project (dll or flexsim).
Open the solution explorer (via the view menu)
Right click the project (The top node in that tree is the solution so click 1 level deeper on the project)
Go to properties (last option)
Then the properties window opens en click on the Linker folder in the tree
Then click on input
There you see "additional dependencies" and you can find glaux.lib there
simply remove it

I think that this is it. If anyone has any comment please feel free

Steven

Steven,

Thanks for your kind words. But thah's why I am a Freelancer, so nobody can fire me, beside myself .

Anway, thanks for your help and it is working.

It is interesting to see that the *.ncb file gets very big. Before it was around 100 kb and now it is over 8 MB. Also build the DLL takes much longer. But maybe this is only because he still has to convert the 2003 stuff to 2008.
I don't know, and the important bit is, that I have a DLL from 2008 now .

Hi Tom,

I can tell you that to create a DLL in 2005 also take a long time but the size is the same in 2005 as in 2003.

Regarding the .ncb file I found on the net that Microsoft have changed how they create the .ncb file from 2003 to 2005.
The .ncb file is used for auto completion (one of many thing), in 2003 they had a pre build .ncb file and now it seams it build every time for a project.

To remove glaux.lib I did the same as Steven describes it.

Lars-Olof

Does flexsim 4.3 β support visual studio 2005?

Yes, 4.3 will be compatible with VS 2005