Hi! Well, I guess the size of the apps while using a compiler other than VC++ has allways been an issue. Using gcc here, the smallest app is about 1.2 MB in size, 500 kb when using UPX. With gcc the problem is the C++ specific runtime stuff needed, which is linked to the app. Compiling C programs mingw uses the MSVCRT.DLL which comes with every windows system, thus producing rather small apps. With C++ this can't be done since there is no C++ specific runtime lib. MSVC compiled apps rely on many system specific dlls, thus reducing the apps size. I guess it is save to say that MSVC 1. does a better job optimizing for size 2. creates smaller apps because all the "rest of the code" is hidden in some DLLs
Take MFC as an alternative framework for Windows. The apps are rather small because there's MFCXXX.DLL which holds the framework code. Compiling wxWidgets as a dll gives the same result, but wxWidgets isn't a standard system dll, so you would have to ditribute it with the app.
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