Note for Windows users:

  It is highly recommended to declare the Windows OS version you are

targetting when building the library as well as when using it. You can do so

thanks to the well known Microsoft macros WINVER, _WIN32_WINDOWS or

_WIN32_WINNT, see your platform SDK documentation for a description

of those macros and how to use them. To define it when building the

library, use the configure script --extra-cxxflag option. Here is the

configuration to build STLport using Visual Studio 2005 and targetting

Windows XP:

configure -c msvc8 --extra-cxxflag "/D_WIN32_WINNT=0x0501"

  If you do not declare it at build time STLport will adapt to the PSDK in

use, windows.h gives a default value to WINVER. However, when using the

library, windows.h is not necessarily included, at least not by STLport

internally, so none of the macros are defined which will result in an

inconsistency in the build process which most of time will generate undefined

behavior at runtime.

  Here is the main reason for following this advise, the Windows 95

compatibility issue:

  Because of a modification in the behavior of the Win32 API functions

InterlockedIncrement and InterlockedDecrement after Windows 95, STLport

libraries built for Windows 95 cannot be used to generate an application

built for Windows XP for instance. So, if you build STLport with a Windows

95 PSDK, STLport will be ready for Windows 95. If you then use it without

defining _WIN32_WINDOWS to signal Windows 95 compatibility, STLport will

consider that it can use latest Windows OS features like the new

InterlockedIncrement and InterlockedDecrement functions which change the

memory footprint of some internal STLport objects making it incompatible

with the libraries built for Windows 95.

  Normally, doing so wouldn't generate any compilation or link error, you

would only experiment undefined behavior at runtime. In order to make this

problem more obvious STLport forces a link time error in debug mode (_DEBUG

macro defined).

Unresolved symbol will be:

  - 'building_for_at_least_windows98_but_library_built_for_windows95'

  if you are trying to use STLport libraries built for Windows 98 or later

  to generate an application targetting the Windows 95 platform.

  - 'building_for_windows95_but_library_built_for_at_least_windows98'

  if you are trying to use STLport libraries built for Windows 95 to generate

  an appliation targetting the

  Windows XP platform for instance.

  Of course, targetting the latest Windows OS versions will give you the best

performance from STLport. This is why when none of the platform macros are

defined STLport consider that there is no minimum OS requirement and will

use the latest API functions. There is only one exception to this behavior,

the SwitchToThread function that is used only if you define _WIN32_WINNT to a

value higher or equal to 0X0400.