how to fix bad masm32 sdk install

[markallyn]

Hello everyone,

Several months ago I installed masm64 sdk on my 64 bit machine.  Installation worked fine, and I have been happily coding in x64 since.  Recently I discovered that some files that are in masm32 sdk are not in masm64 sdk, for example, masm32rt.inc and its various .inc and .lib dependencies.  When I attempted to install masm32 sdk the installer reported that I had already installed masm32 sdk and refused to overwrite it.  Presumably, this is because the 64 bit stuff is in a directory at c:\masm32.

So, how to fix the problem?

Here's one approach, perhaps.
1.  Save any work that is in the masm64 installation to a different directory outside c:\masm32. 
2.  Delete the masm64 stuff contained in c:\masm32.  This means deleting the masm32 directory at c:\ and all its dependencies.
3.  Install masm32 sdk.
4. re-Install masm64 sdk.
5.  Question:  what happens when I try to install masm64 sdk?  Will the masm32 sdk permit this? 

What other solutions can you folks suggest?

Regards,
Mark Allyn

[FORTRANS]

Hi,

   I installed MASM32 to a USB connected drive.  You could try
that and then copy the wanted files to your  MASM32 directory
on your main drive.

HTH,

Steve N.

[markallyn]

Good afternoon, Steven N.

Yes, that could work.  There are quite a few files that masm32rt.inc wants, so it might be a bit tedious.  But, with patience it could be done.

Mark

[markallyn]

Hello, Steven N.

Actually, that doesn't work.  When you run install.exe it tries to install to either c:\ or d:\.  You have no other choices.  So, if you download the masm32 sdk file to a usb drive, install.exe won't install the sdk to the usb drive, it will try to install either to C:\ or D:\,

Mark

[hutch--]

Its the level of assumption that is the problem here. The MASM32 install works fine and has for years as long as your machine is set up correctly and does not block writing files to disk. The 64 bit version is development software and is not a complete turnkey package. If you want to run both you install the 32 bit version first then manually copy the 64 bit directories into the 32 bit install.

This is not commercial software and the 64 bit version is still in development, its for programmers who know how to set up environments like this. As you would be aware, I do not get paid for developing the 64 bit version, I need it myself and I am happy enough to share it with members of the forum but I am not in a position to supply the 64 bit binaries and that means no automated install.

The amount of work to get this up and going is mind boggling and I have put well over a year into it so far, for every procedure in the library there is a mountain of testing, then there are the macros which are even more PHUN, a number of tools dedicated to 64 bit MASM and the workload in front of me is bigger than mount Everest.

The 32 bit install deliberately prevents installs on removable drives as so many people botched it and then whined about how it did not work. Its easy enough to get onto a removable drive, something that most programmers should be able to do. Slightly rename the existing one, install the 32 bit version on that partition then copy it to the root directory of the removable drive.

[markallyn]

Good evening\night Hutch,

Thanks for the response.  I understand that the 64 bit version is development stage.  I have no fault to find with it; only praise.  I haven't encountered any problems using it.

Could this work:  install masm32 sdk to drive D:\.  Then copy files (masm32rt.inc and its subtended .inc and .lib files) to C:\masm32 (where my 64 bit install is located)?

The only reason I need masm32rt.inc and its dependencies is because I am trying to use MasmBasic and RichMasm.

Regards,
Mark

[jj2007]

install masm32 sdk to drive D:\.  Then copy files (masm32rt.inc and its subtended .inc and .lib files) to C:\masm32 (where my 64 bit install is located)?

That will certainly work - just copy all files and folders :t

[FORTRANS]

Hi,

The 32 bit install deliberately prevents installs on removable drives as so many people botched it and then whined about how it did not work.

   Oops.  Another indication of a broken system here?  It did install
to an IDE hard drive in a USB box.  It also allowed me to set up a
swap drive there as well.  (Which is another no-no for Windows if
it is a removable drive.)  Neither would work with a flash memory
USB drive.

Actually, that doesn't work.

   Oops again.  It did work for me, but as hutch has pointed out,
it probably should not have worked.  Luckily, or unluckily, I didn't
know that at the time.  I did have a bunch of problems at that
time installing it.  (Mostly due to not enough memory.)  But that
did not seem to involve using a "removable" drive.  Sorry for the
bad advice.  Use your D: drive/partition as others have advised.

Regards,

Steve

[markallyn]

Hello JJ(Jochen) and Fortrans(Steve):

Well, nothing worth doing is easily done.  I tried downloading masm32 SDK to D:.
The installation worked perfectly, although it chewed up most of the partition (recovery HP partition).  I then tried to copy masm32rt.inc and its friends over to my 64 bit masm installation.  That's where the troubles began.  I managed to get masm32rt.inc to assemble (after killing off .486 and model flat, stdcall directives).  But, the next .inc file is windows.inc and this threw out a bunch of error messages from deep inside the file.  So, I gave up ....

The workaround that seems OK was this:  copied the masm32 sdk stuff from partition D: over to a 12 gb thumb drive.  (Drive F: on my machine).  If I work off notepad or notepad++ I can write .asm code and it assembles fine with ml.exe and link.exe on drive F:.  Downloaded olly as well into masm32\bin and it works too, although I need to fix the path env variable.  I also installed masmbasic and richmasm.exe...

Hopefully now I can try out JJ's excellent masmbasic plotting program.
Not pretty.

Regards,
Mark

[sinsi]

Don't use masm32rt.inc for 64-bit coding.

Code Select Expand

include \masm32\include64\masm64rt.inc

[hutch--]

The variation with removable drives comes from some drives (USB & SD) being recognised as fixed drives, I see it with some of the different things I have here. The reason in the first place for the restriction was the sheer number of people who did not know enough about their own computer to configure an open installation.

Many named the open install as MASM instead of MASM32 then flooded the forum with "why dozenit werk ?" questions, then they tried to copy the install up some archipeligo of directories off the Windows directory with the same "why dozenit werk ?" questions then there were those who chose to use crappy freeware AV scanners that silently blocked disk writes with yet another dose of "why dozenit werk ?" questions. The list goes on and on. I can reasonably expect that people who want to write assembler code know the basics of file and directory paths yet I am surprised at some of the responses you get.