[RESOLVED] I can't find the setting

[Lord Orwell]

Hi, i am having trouble with direct x because i use winxp 64. I have discovered through research that i need to tell my compiler to compile for 32-bit. I can not find the setting. I use visual c# 2005 express edition. And if you know how to do it in vb i would appreciate it as well

[jmcilhinney]

The Express editions don't have a 64-bit compiler so you're already compiling your projects for a 32-bit platform.

[eranga262154]

How can we say that the compiler is 32, 64 bit.

[jmcilhinney]

How can we say that the compiler is 32, 64 bit.

In the Express editions you can't. In VS it is not surprisingly set on the Compile page of the project properties.

[eranga262154]

Thanks, I got the point.

[Lord Orwell]

OK I solved it. I found an answer on the visual studio issues on the microsoft web site. Turns out that the button which is there in regular edition is removed in express editions. You have to manually edit the project file and add a line to it telling it to compile for x86. If you don't the project contains both 64 and 32 bit code and add-ins such as directx only support 32 bit. So when i ran the project in my debugger (on a 64-bit platform) it expected directx to be 64 bit as well. Interestingly it gave me an error telling me directx was not a valid win32 application when in fact the calling program wasn't. This is resolved.

[jmcilhinney]

That's interesting. The default in VS is "Any CPU", so I guess that that would produce an assembly containing code to support both 32- and 64-bit platforms. I guess that the Express editions compile this way too, so where MSDN says they don't support 64-bit compilation it means they don't support compiling specifically for a 64-bit platform. Compiling to support 64-bit platforms in a 32-bit assembly is presumably something different. I've learned something, although I still couldn't explain the details.

[Lord Orwell]

except i was doing the opposite: compiling to support 32 bit in a 64-bit environment.