gcc as strictly win32 compiler

["Sean McBride" <smcbride at jvbfinancial dot com>]

I know this is a VERY newbie question, but I have looked on the list
archives and been confused by the compiler flags for making win apps, and
the definitions of WIN32 and CYGWIN defines.

I have several straight win32 apps that I wrote using MSVC and I simply want
to create the executables with gcc rather than MSVC(just for fun, does that
make me evil?).

I have used gcc with tornado for some embedded apps before, so I am not
completely unfamiliar with gcc (only for C files though).

I wrote the makefiles, and after a while tinkering with some defines and
slight syntax changes, I was surprisingly quickly successful at getting a
code base that compiles on Both MSVC and GCC.  (most of my headaches came
from MSVC's  implementation of STL)

However, I have a few questions about how this will affect my exes.

Is it possible to compile an exe that does not require the cywin.dll if I am
not using any of the unix apis and sticking with straight win32?  What
compiler flags should be used for this and what macros do they define?

if not, as I understand it, cygwin.dll interprets many commands and uses
MSVCRT.dll on the back end.  How do I create a redistributable for users
without cygwin, and How badly does this hit performance?

lastly, after hours of wondering why, I found the reason gcc was so slow
when compiling certain files in my project.  The compilation of templates
seems to be crawling.  Is there any way to speed that up or is it just a
result of gcc or cygwin or possibly, my stupidity?

Thanks, and I hope it wasn't too long winded or too newbie of a question.
If it was, just flame me and I'll take it like a man.

Sean


--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Bug reporting:         http://cygwin.com/bugs.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/