Compiling C code in Windows XP

Question

I have C code that was compiled on Windows NT with Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0. I am migrating this code to a new machine using Windows XP. What IDE is suitable for this? I don't think MS Visual 6.0 has been designed for XP... Can I just use Visual Studio C++ to compile C code and keep the same functionality?

Answer 1

You can still use Visual Studio 6 with Windows XP.

You could also download Visual Studio C++ Express

Downloading and installing MinGW could be an option as well as long as the C is compatible.

Answer 2

From your wording, I'm guessing you already have a later version of Visual Studio than VC6, so yes - you should be able to open any project/solution and proceed, with a couple of caveats:

1. Make sure to do this to a copy of your project (probably a copy of the whole source tree, actually), as VS will prompt you to make a 1-way conversion of the old VC6 project to the new format. Once this is done, you can't open it again in VC6.
2. You may find compile or link errors when you try to build the project. Most likely these will be due to changes in the C++ language or libraries used between the two versions, but if the code was reasonably well crafted, this shouldn't be too hard to fix.

But, as others have said, yes - VC6 still works fine on XP. The only drawback is you may not be able to get access to newer C++ language features, or Windows SDK features directly.

Best of luck!