Why a so old version of MASM in the MASM32 project ?

[harald]

Hello everybody,

(this is my first post on the MASM32 forum)

MASM32 is a great package, and I have the greatest admiration for the work of Mr Steve Hutchesson and his collaborators on this project.

I would like to ask a question (perhaps a stupid question, and probably already asked ...) :

Why is the MASM32 package limited to MASM version 6.14 from 1998 and a version of MS link from 1998 ?

In the free releases of Visual Studio Express, there is always a new version of MASM (32/64) and of the linker,
with (probably) the newests  x86  instructions sets (SSSE3, SSE4, AVX512, ...)

Would it be possible to get Microsoft's authorization to include newest (and free) versions of ML.EXE and LINK.EXE in the MASM32 bundle ?
For example, a ML.exe / LINK.exe (and the necessary DLLs) from Visual Studio 2015 ?

NOTA:
I can't download the latests versions of MS Visual Studio Express, because the ISO are now to huge (6Go, 7 Go !), and my internet connection is not fast enough to support such downloads ...


Thanks in advance for any answer or explanation.

[hutch--]

Its a licencing issue, you have to have permission to distribute MASM and I only every had it for the old version. Most have no real problem getting a later version but unless you are writing SSE3 and later, the old one will do the rest. Be thankful you did not have to download vs2017 Enterprise, it was 15 gig.

[avcaballero]

> 15 gig

:shock:
Is that the new way of doing something non-free?

[coder]

harald.

just so you know that MS is quite hostile to ASM programmers, trying as hard as they could to making life difficult for asm coders. The red carpet is stretched to Visual Studio and HLL progammers only. Peasants like us are the lowest caste in Visual Studio party  :lol:

[anta40]

> 15 gig

:shock:
Is that the new way of doing something non-free?

Just get the VS Community. Unlike the Express edition,
the Community edition is pretty much a full featured development tool.

I wish MS released their command-line tool, like Embarcedero does, though  :P.