GnuWin32 News

Dear gnuwin32.sourceforge.net users

A new version 0.6.13 of the automated gnuwin32 download tool is released. It comes with following changes:

* After installation of gnuwin32, a new shortcut to %windir%\system32\cmd.exe is created within the Windows Start Menu. By activating this shortcut, cmd.exe automatically runs a BATCH file called set_gnuwin32.bat that not only sets the window title appropriately, but also sets all environment variable (inclusive PATH) as necessary.

* You can also run set_gnuwin32.bat within an arbitrary cmd window, if it is located at a place listed within PATH. The purpose of this procedure is to prevent name collisions of gnuwin32 tools and tools from other software -- e.g. sort.exe of gnuwin32 and sort.exe within %windir%\SYSTEM32, or similarly link.exe etc.

You may install, parallel to gnuwin32, Micorosoft Windows Resource Kit, Windows Software Development Kit, mingw etc. For each such environment you may have one or more set_xyz.bat file, e.g. set_gnuwin32.bat for gnuwin32, set_wrk.bat for Windows Resource Kit, set_sdk.bat for the Software Development Kit, set_mingw.bat for mingw etc.

Depending on what you are working, you first issue the appropriate set_xyz.bat command or activate the appropriate shortcut.

Note that set_gnuwin32.bat also accept a command line option /u to remove (unset) all environment variables related to gnuwin32 and to tidy up the PATH environment variable.

* Maybe you utilize the registration key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun to run a BATCH file each time a new cmd processor is started. Within this BATCH file you may to make some special treatment depending on which set_xyz.bat file must be carried out. getgnuwin32-0.6.13 puts a StartCmd.bat script into the bin directory of the gnuwin32 installation that shows how such a case dependent configuration can be achieved.

* update-link.bat searches now orphaned links when issued the first time on a new gnuwin32 installation. Then, these links are replaced by by correct ones. Previous versions of update-links.bat replaced these links almost blindly.

Thanks for your interest!
With kind regards
Mathias