Languages that Windows supports out of the box

Question

I have been asked to write a (very) simple program for a set of Windows machines (XP I think) - so simple that the choice of language isn't really an issue. However, I want to be able to distribute a binary/script that will run straight away on the Windows machine, without the need to pre-install any interpretor or virtual machine. I'm developing on a Linux machine and I have no idea what languages Windows supports 'out of the box'. Can anyone advise?

For example

• Perl would be great but I don't believe windows machines come with Perl pre-installed? Asking the user to install Perl to use my script is not acceptable.
• I believe Python has the same problem? (although maybe I can use the PyInstaller? -- as in this question)
• Likewise Java? Is the virtual machine pre-installed on most Windows distributions? (I understand it got removed after a dispute with Sun Microsystems?)

The only option I can think of so far is

• c/c++ with MinGW cross-compiler.

While I'm happy to write the code in c++, I wanted to check my language options first.

Answer 1

The only scripting languages supported out of the box are the batch interpreter, vbscript and jscript. Other than that you are into compiled languages. A good option could be C# but make sure you target the .net version that shipped with XP.