Visual Studio is not a good choice. You will need one that support the WinSDK for Win98. You might have to go back to a Visual Studio in 2001. However they did not have a free version back then (like they have now with Communities) and it is hard to find a copy to buy.

Borland C++ / Watcom might be what you are looking for.

You may want whatever was the latest version of mingw (gcc) to support win 98. Just download a few older versions of the codeblocks ide that has mingw bundled (start with versions from 2012 or so), compile a test program, and see if it runs under your target operating environment. If it does, pick an ide and go to town.

vladstamate wrote:

Visual Studio is not a good choice.

MSVC6 is a great choice 😁 I miss its debugger and lack of bloat so much.....

vvbee wrote:

You may want whatever was the latest version of mingw (gcc) to support win 98.

GCC 4.7.2, but then there's also the issues with the newer libraries that you'd depend on that have been compiled with newer GCCs or have many other blind regressions.

leileilol wrote:

GCC 4.7.2, but then there's also the issues with the newer libraries that you'd depend on that have been compiled with newer GCCs or have many other blind regressions.

I've used that version for win 95, but did they drop 98 support too at the same time?

Visual Studio 2005 is the last to support Win98 toolset. VS2005 debugger is a great improvement over VS2003, since it supports looking in stl containers (which I had to do manually in 2003). With 2005 you are limited to VC8, which I think is C++03, maybe includes TR1? Can't remember. MSVC6 is freeeeee.... just get the ISO (its on MSDN) and enter 111111111..... as the key (no secret, M$ opened up these legacy IDE's ... mainly for VB6 support I think).

I guess gcc will give you a newer version of C++ if you want. I don't know about gcc and legacy stuff so can't suggest anything o.0

I'd consider Visual Studio 2003 as a mere minimum - as it has an STL library that actually works. Unlike earlier versions.

Thanks very much to everyone, i appreciate it!

I'll add that Visual C++ 2005 Express is free.
The IDE itself requires at least Windows 2000. But compiled programs should run on 98, provided that you make a MBCS build, not Unicode (the latter being the default, I think).

Azarien wrote:

I'll add that Visual C++ 2005 Express is free.
The IDE itself requires at least Windows 2000. But compiled programs should run on 98, provided that you make a MBCS build, not Unicode (the latter being the default, I think).

Thanks very much!
i'll try that method first!

An alternative could be KernelEx: http://kernelex.sourceforge.net/about/
This is a compatibility layer for Windows 98, which adds newer kernel and other APIs, which effectively makes your Windows 98 system compatible with more modern tools and applications.
You should be able to compile with a modern Visual Studio for a Windows XP target, and get it to run via KernelEx.
It's worth a try, I suppose.

I personally am with leileilol on this though: Visual C++ 6.0 was a great IDE for Win9x back in the day, and I still use it today when I want to do some retro-programming targeted at Win9x. One advantage is that the IDE runs on the target system, allowing for easy testing and debugging on the machine itself (it works fine even on my 486DX2-80).

Scali wrote:

An alternative could be KernelEx: http://kernelex.sourceforge.net/about/ This is a compatibility layer for Windows 98, which add […]
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An alternative could be KernelEx: http://kernelex.sourceforge.net/about/
This is a compatibility layer for Windows 98, which adds newer kernel and other APIs, which effectively makes your Windows 98 system compatible with more modern tools and applications.
You should be able to compile with a modern Visual Studio for a Windows XP target, and get it to run via KernelEx.
It's worth a try, I suppose.

I personally am with leileilol on this though: Visual C++ 6.0 was a great IDE for Win9x back in the day, and I still use it today when I want to do some retro-programming targeted at Win9x. One advantage is that the IDE runs on the target system, allowing for easy testing and debugging on the machine itself (it works fine even on my 486DX2-80).

I once tried KernelEx on another machine and it was very buggy and wouldn't even compile the code i wrote. So i kind of dont trust it.
But you're right i installed Visual C++ 6.0 and it works as good as Visual Studio 2017. Thanks Scali and leileilol!

Edit: Changed the title to solved since i found a solution. Thanks to everyone!!!

CasualRobert wrote:

Edit: Changed the title to solved since i found a solution. Thanks to everyone!!!

Which is.... ? VS2005 Express? On what OS?

Hello,
It is Visual Studio 6.0 on Windows 98 SE. I tried Visual Studio 2005, but it always gave me a error.

I forgot to reply to this topic. A bit late but tdm-gcc 5.1 is a modern compiler and can target win 98, my legacy projects run there. It's included with CodeBlocks 17 which is a good IDE.

VC6 is a good choice for that system, especially for the tools.

In one of these threads I benchmarked some compilers on win 9x. Gcc was consistently and by some distance the best in performance from what I recall. I already said it above but probably want to try and cobble that into your ide and see if it works for your project.

dondiego wrote:

I forgot to reply to this topic. A bit late but tdm-gcc 5.1 is a modern compiler and can target win 98, my legacy projects run there. It's included with CodeBlocks 17 which is a good IDE.

Are you a bad enough dude to target Win95 and WinNT 3.51?

CasualRobert wrote:

Hello,
It is Visual Studio 6.0 on Windows 98 SE. I tried Visual Studio 2005, but it always gave me a error.

VS2005 does *not* work on Win98, but it can generate 98-compatible executables.

leileilol wrote:

Are you a bad enough dude to target Win95 and WinNT 3.51?

No, there's the LE win95 version. For a modern GZDoom there are too many unsupported functions. Also i don't think it's worth.