Hi guys, I need to make a program for windows in ASM, however I haven't used a windows system in eons and there for I don't have a running one anymore. The question is, how could I make the application on linux, compile it for windows and test it on a windows environment, without using a full blown virtual machine?

I know fasm produces EXE/ELF invariably of the running machine's OS, but I need to separate the object generation and linker, there for I would be generating FASM to generate object code and a linker to build the exe, however ld doesn't really generate EXE files. And even if I get a windows linker to run under wine, I still need to run the app, which is kinda bogus on wine.

So, any recommendation guys?

Thanks for your time.

Are you asking to use a Windows linker and a Windows OS to test your exe, but without using a Windows VM or WINE?

You haven't really given yourself many other options. I guess the only other option would be to run Windows for real on another machine.

Build binutils for target i686-pc-cygwin, then you'll obtain version of ld (called i686-pc-cygwin-ld), which generates PE instead of ELF. Of course, wine will be still needed to run the generated .exe file.

Do you have a real need for a linker? fasm can generate a PE file straight. For instance, all the examples in the fasm Windows package will produce an executable from Linux using fasm alone (with the exception of the MSCOFF example).

@LocoDelAssembly: Yeah, I sadly need a linker, I have to link with some object code I have no sources for and as I understood it, FASM won't do the linker's job in such cases. (A proposito: Buenos Aires?).

@Fanael: I'll check it out in a minute, sounds viable.

@revolution: Ideally, yes, but I see I probably have not much of a choice but to use WINE, since otherwise I would need to sacrifice one of my systems and install windows in it.

Speaking of WINE, how accurately is it emulating windows? I mean, I have to load a DLL inside a running, 3rd party process, as this program needs to monitor certain calls made by this program, and I'm not sure I'll be able to run the program in question in WINE or that WINE will let me inject the DLL as I would in a real Win32 system (I would love to tell you what the program is, but I have a signed NDA, can't say much :S)

Thanks for the help.

La Plata.

I would go for a real Windows, inside a virtual machine if you have to. Using WINE to test if it will work on a real Win32 is too risky considering the kind of task you want to perform.