GnuCash on windows - Instructions for giving it a try

[Volker Englisch]

 > several of us have now compiled and run GnuCash on MS Windows by the
 > mingw32/gcc compiler environment. This is how everyone else can give
 > it a try as well. We would be happy to hear any further feedback about
 > problems or (hopefully) success in this matter.

I think this is terrific being able to run GnuCash on MS Windows (not 
that I'm going to change my platform for running GnuCash :-)).

I had some time last night to try out the instructions for installing 
GnuCash on Windows.  The instructions were easy to follow but when I run 
the install.sh the process stops shortly after make is invoked.

There is a warning displayed when during configure. I don't know if this 
is related to the error in make:

checking winsock2.h presence... yes
configure: WARNING: winsock2.h: present but cannot be compiled
configure: WARNING: winsock2.h:     check for missing prerequisite headers?
configure: WARNING: winsock2.h: see the Autoconf documentation
configure: WARNING: winsock2.h:     section "Present But Cannot Be Compiled"
configure: WARNING: winsock2.h: proceeding with the preprocessor's result
configure: WARNING: winsock2.h: in the future, the compiler will take 
precedence
configure: WARNING:     ## ------------------------------------------ ##
configure: WARNING:     ## Report this to the AC_PACKAGE_NAME lists.  ##
configure: WARNING:     ## ------------------------------------------ ##


And then there is the error when make runs (I'm including the last few 
lines of the screen output):

make  all-am
make[4]: Entering directory 
`/c/GnuCash/tmp/guile-1.6.8/libguile-ltdl/upstream'
make[4]: Nothing to be done for `all-am'.
make[4]: Leaving directory 
`/c/GnuCash/tmp/guile-1.6.8/libguile-ltdl/upstream'
make[3]: Leaving directory 
`/c/GnuCash/tmp/guile-1.6.8/libguile-ltdl/upstream'
make[3]: Entering directory `/c/GnuCash/tmp/guile-1.6.8/libguile-ltdl'
/bin/sh ../libtool --tag=CC --mode=compile gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. 
-I.. -I. -I. -I.. -I./..  -I/c/GnuCash/readline/include 
-I/c/GnuCash/regex/include  -g -O2 -Wall -Wmissing-prototypes 
-fno-strict-aliasing -c -o guile-ltdl.lo guile-ltdl.c
cygpath: can't convert empty path
mkdir .libs
  gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -I. -I. -I.. -I./.. 
-I/c/GnuCash/readline/include -I/c/GnuCash/regex/include -g -O2 -Wall 
-Wmissing-prototypes -fno-strict-aliasing -c guile-ltdl.c  -DDLL_EXPORT 
-DPIC -o .libs/guile-ltdl.o
  gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -I. -I. -I.. -I./.. 
-I/c/GnuCash/readline/include -I/c/GnuCash/regex/include -g -O2 -Wall 
-Wmissing-prototypes -fno-strict-aliasing -c guile-ltdl.c -o 
guile-ltdl.o >/dev/null 2>&1
/bin/sh ../libtool --tag=CC --mode=link gcc  -g -O2 -Wall 
-Wmissing-prototypes -fno-strict-aliasing  -lwsock32 
-L/c/GnuCash/readline/lib -L/c/GnuCash/regex/lib -lregex -no-undefined 
-o libguile-ltdl.la -rpath c:/GnuCash/guile/lib -version-info 1:1:0 
-export-dynamic -no-undefined guile-ltdl.lo  -lcrypt -lm
cygpath: can't convert empty path

*** Warning: linker path does not have real file for library -lwsock32.
*** I have the capability to make that library automatically link in when
*** you link to this library.  But I can only do this if you have a
*** shared version of the library, which you do not appear to have
*** because I did check the linker path looking for a file starting
*** with libwsock32 but no candidates were found. (...for file magic test)

*** Warning: linker path does not have real file for library -lcrypt.
*** I have the capability to make that library automatically link in when
*** you link to this library.  But I can only do this if you have a
*** shared version of the library, which you do not appear to have
*** because I did check the linker path looking for a file starting
*** with libcrypt and none of the candidates passed a file format test
*** using a file magic. Last file checked: /c/GnuCash/regex/lib/libregex.a
*** The inter-library dependencies that have been dropped here will be
*** automatically added whenever a program is linked with this library
*** or is declared to -dlopen it.

*** Since this library must not contain undefined symbols,
*** because either the platform does not support them or
*** it was explicitly requested with -no-undefined,
*** libtool will only create a static version of it.
lib /OUT:.libs/libguile-ltdl.lib  guile-ltdl.o
../libtool: lib: command not found
make[3]: *** [libguile-ltdl.la] Error 127
make[3]: Leaving directory `/c/GnuCash/tmp/guile-1.6.8/libguile-ltdl'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/c/GnuCash/tmp/guile-1.6.8/libguile-ltdl'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/c/GnuCash/tmp/guile-1.6.8'
make: *** [all] Error 2

I am not trying to run GnuCash on Windows.  I just wanted to follow the 
instructions to get it to run.  If you need any additional information 
please let me know.


    Volker