[Grizzly]

Because I am inpatient.

[karajorma]

It's not particularly hard once you have things sorted out. What you need though is a suitable compiler. Do you have one?

[Grizzly]

No.
Next question: where do I get one?

Actually, I do remember we had visual studio laying somewhere around here...

[Mars]

I've been wondering about a good compiler for Windoze myself.

[WMCoolmon]

There are two sticky threads about compilers for Windows.

[Grizzly]

OK, got one (dev-C++), what do I do now?

[karajorma]

Right, first thing you need to do is get hold of the code.

I highly recommend using TortoiseCVS and following the guide I posted here.

Then you need to open the project file (If there is one that Dev-C++ can understand) and compile/link it. Can't really help you there as I've never touched Dev-C++

[chief1983]

If Dev-C++ doesn't work out, I'd recommend Visual Studio 2005 Express or Code::Blocks.  Both are free and can handle visual studio .proj files.  If you need links I can dig them out later but Google should lead you in the right direction.  I used to use Dev-C++, but when I realized it had not been updated for several years, I had to switch to something a little more recent.

[Grizzly]

TortioseCVS!! I used to get the latest vegastrike (with the exe already compiled by the way) with SVN.

Thanks for the help people.

[karajorma]

Well surely that was TortoiseSVN then? But yeah, Tortoise is great.

[Grizzly]

So... What Do I do now? I tried build but I get a lot of fatal error C1083's.

I use Visual C++ Expres edition

[karajorma]

What did it say apart from the number?

[Grizzly]

cannot open file.

[karajorma]

You weren't trying to build FS2 or FRED when you had a copy open already?

Cause I've seen that exact error a few times when I've built FRED2_Open while building a mission.

The rest of the time I'd expect a compiler or linker error to be much more esoteric than a simple "Cannot find file"

[Grizzly]

d:\downloads\games\freespace2\cores\latest\fs2_open\code\weapon\flak.cpp(70) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'weapon/flak.h': No such file or directory
muzzleflash.cpp
d:\downloads\games\freespace2\cores\latest\fs2_open\code\weapon\muzzleflash.cpp(106) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'globalincs/systemvars.h': No such file or directory
shockwave.cpp
d:\downloads\games\freespace2\cores\latest\fs2_open\code\weapon\shockwave.cpp(368) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'weapon/shockwave.h': No such file or directory
swarm.cpp
d:\downloads\games\freespace2\cores\latest\fs2_open\code\weapon\swarm.cpp(135) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'weapon/swarm.h': No such file or directory
trails.cpp

strangely, there is such file or directory

[karajorma]

That is odd indeed. What happens if you open say weapon\shockwave.cpp and try to compile it?

[Grizzly]

------ Build started: Project: code, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------
Compiling...
shockwave.cpp
d:\downloads\games\freespace2\cores\latest\fs2_open\code\weapon\shockwave.cpp(368) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'weapon/shockwave.h': No such file or directory
Build log was saved at "file://d:\Downloads\Games\Freespace2\Cores\Latest\fs2_open\projects\MSVC_2005\Debug\BuildLog.htm"
code - 1 error(s), 0 warning(s)
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

including bui... FRED!!! (yeah, thats my new curse word) can't upload HTM Files!

[WMCoolmon]

Does the file exist?

If it does, it sounds to me like the default include directories for MSVC2005 are messed. Try changing the "code" and "freespace2" (and probably "fred2") projects to include

../../code

Semicolons or commas are used to separate different default include directories. (I don't remember which it is)