Latest compiler creating XP-only compatible .exe files

Latest compiler creating XP-only compatible .exe files

• Quinn Dexter

  We will need more info to be able to help. Please post back once you have more details.
  
  Thanks,
    Ayman Shoukry
    VC++ Team
  
  

• Daggs

  no actual errors, just not running. as i pointed out, this may be something from the Juce library, which we'll have to look into, but it is only caused by the new compiler, so it's very difficult to see what's going on.
  
  i'll try to get in touch with the creators of upx and see if they can see what's going on.
  
  

• Pioter

  the executables i build with VC++2005 will run fine, i should point out. that is, they run fine on this computer.
  
  does it not appear odd to you that they're not accepted by the upx tool plus, have you managed to successfully run a 2005 build on a win2k or win98 pc i have no other systems on which to test here :(
  
  

• undead142

  okay, for now, i cannot bring you any examples.
  
  however, don't be so quick to assume that noone can help without them. is anyone familiar with the UPX tool So far, I am absolutely unable to compress any .exe generated by VC++express 2005 - it says there is unexpected data in the PE header.
  
  I've tried with some of my older apps, compiled with the beta version, and i get the same problem. This is the problem that the quoted coder is also having with the latest version, the difference being that they've had older versions of visual C++ on their system in the past, which may have been used to build the 'working' ones. We are using the 'Juce' libraries, but consider that irrelevant for now.
  
  I have made the most absolutely basic .exe you can imagine, with just a main function that does something inconsequential. If I compile it with VC++express, UPX tells me that it can't compress it due to unexpected data in the PE header. This is as basic as it gets. For now, just consider that the problem may not be between the beta and release versions, but between non-2005 versions and the 2005 version. Perhaps even forget that.
  
  Please, could you try to use UPX on any binary exe built with VC++2005. Does it work for you I do not have access to older versions to try out, so can offer no other clues or examples, but SURELY it is possible for someone involved to deduce what may be causing such a problem
  
  As far as the 'errors' on loading the compiled apps on the other os's, (e.g. win2k) they simply didn't load. a bit of hourglass and no application. you may say that this is something to do with the juce library, and perhaps there's a chance you'd be correct, BUT - this is only because of a change in the 2005 compiler :shrug:
  
  but for even the most rudimentary of exes to be rejected by UPX
  
  

• Brandon Bray

  Does it just AV or does it tell you try installing the application or does it tell you missing dlls
  
  I hate to ask many questions but I really want to help if I can :-) Please don't hesitate to let me know in case myself or others can help.
  
  Thanks,
    Ayman Shoukry
    VC++ Team
  
  

• mehdi62b

  Could you point me to where you downloaded the tool from
  
  Thanks,
    Ayman Shoukry
    VC++ Team
  
  

• Neotech

  I really don't have experience with the UPX tool but I don't believe that there is a breaking change in the PE headers of VS2005.
  
  The only thing that comes across my mind is having manifests embeded into the executables. Could you try a simple application compiled with /MT (Linked statically to the CRT) and see if UPX still complains. That is to say, don't generate any manifests for your application.
  
  That is also something applicable only for Win XP and later OSs since fusion and SxS in general is not supported in older OSs (including win2k).
  
  Let me know if this works for you. If this doesn't then I will try downloading the tool to reproduce the issue myself.
  
  Thanks,
    Ayman Shoukry
    VC++ Team
  
  

• kes

  no luck :( everything is always set to /MT or /MTd here.
  
  

• futureadmin

  I was able to reproduce the issue the error. I looked at the VC2005 header and everything seems as expected (used the dumpbin tool). The executable runs as expected just by running it.
  
  upx test.exe
                       Ultimate Packer for eXecutables
     Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
  UPX 1.25w        Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer & Laszlo Molnar        Jun 29th 2004

          File size         Ratio      Format      Name
     --------------------   ------   -----------   -----------
  upx: test.exe: CantPackException: unexpected value in PE header (try --force)

  Packed 1 file: 0 ok, 1 error.

  It might be a tool issue. Have you tried contacting the owners of the tool They for sure can tell what might be happening.
  
  Thanks,
    Ayman Shoukry
    VC++ Team

  
  
  

• Praveen Raj

  What are the erros that you are seeing You need to post some details so that folks on the forums can help you.
  
  Thanks,
    Ayman Shoukry
    VC++ Team
  
  
  
  

• Tom Kaminski

  here you go:
  
  http://upx.sourceforge.net/
  
  
  
  

• Jacob Christ

  Hi there, thought I'd get involved here, as it was me that first raised the issue on the Juce forum; thanks to haydxn for asking about it over here.
  
  My experiences were that I'd been using the last beta version for a while, and had several projects that I compiled with it. These were all compressed with UPX and worked happily on all the machines I tried it on. I upgraded to the VCExpress release, recompiled the same projects. Definitely didn't change any project settings at all, and hadn't installed anything else on my machine.
  
  It all seemed to be fine, but my release builds no longer worked - UPX was compressing them without the errors that haydxn saw, but the resulting exe just produced a runtime error ("floating point not loaded" or something).
  
  So I turned off the compression and the exes seemed to be fine (on my XP machine) but no longer run on win2k or win98. I've not witnessed it failing to run myself, but the reports are that there are no errors, but that the exe just doesn't start - nothing appears in the process manager.
  
  In case it's any help, exactly the same thing happens with exes and dlls (being used as an audio plugin).
  
  I can only guess that this must be because there's some managed code being built into it now that wasn't there before Maybe if the .NET runtime was installed on the win2k machines it'd run ok (is that perhaps why it works for you, Ayman ). But that's not a workable solution for my customers. I've been through the compiler and linker settings with a fine tooth comb but nothing seems to make any difference.
  
  Would love to get to the bottom of this - hopefully there's just a setting I can flip that'll sort it out. If not, I guess I'll be going back to VC6 for my release builds...
  
  Cheers
  
  Jules
  
  
  

• Mike Thorpton

  okay, i don't have access to a different os based machine here, so i can't report the errors when attempting that,
  
  however,
  
  trying the UPX exe-compression tool reports:
  
  Can'tPackException: unexpected value in PE header
  
  This does not happen with .exes compiled from the same project with the beta version, which means that something has changed. what could that possibly be surely someone may know what may have changed that causes such a change in the PE header I'll see if i can get hold of a 'before' and 'after' pair of .exes...
  
  

• Sameer Bhangar - MSFT

  As I mentioned before I am not familiar with the tool. So it would be very much related to the tool and hence the tool owners would be able to have more details if it is a tool's issue or a VC2005 one.
  
  Yes, I have been running VC2005 application everyday on win2k machines as well as Win98. What kind of errors do you get when you run on any of such OSs
  
  Thanks,
    Ayman Shoukry
    VC++ Team

  
  
  
• Latest compiler creating XP-only compatible .exe files