System Requirements

This section provides the operating system, PC, Visual C/C++ DLLs, and executable requirements for the MPI 04.03.xx.

Operating System

This MPI release is built to operate on Windows® XP, Vista, and Windows 7 32-bit. In 04.03, support for Windows 7 64-bit was added.

PC Requirements

The PC must meet the minimum requirements specified by the Operating System manufacturer for CPU speed and RAM. Additionally, your PC will need 250 megabytes of available hard disk space.

Visual C/C++ DLLs

Visual Studio 2010

The MPI is built using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. This includes the MPI library, utilities, and example applications. In order to continue legacy support for Visual Studio 2005, the installation directory structure has been modified. When using VS2010 to write your applications, make sure that you are building from the VS2010 directory. The directory structure can be seen in the screen shot below:

figure: MPI install directory structure

Visual Studio 2005

For our customers using earlier versions of Visual Studio, we provide legacy support for Visual Studio 2005. The VS2005 directories of the installation include the library dlls and MDK solution files. This allows you to use and previosly written VS2005 applications and contiune to write new ones using VS2005. When building the MPI with VS2005, it is important that you use the VS2005 directory.

WARNING!
Your Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 installation must have Service Pack 1. If you do not have Service Pack 1, your MPI application program may build correctly, but will not find the proper Microsoft C run-time DLLs and will not execute.

To verify if Service Pack 1 is installed:

In Visual Studio 2005, select Help / About Microsoft Visual Studio.

Distribution of Executables Compiled in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Microsoft does not support distribution of Debug.dlls associated with Microsoft Visual 2005 to PCs which don’t have VS 2005 installed. Therefore, it is recommeneded that Release builds are used for distribution of executables complied in Visual Studio 2005. To confirm your Release build does not require a debug dll, configure your Release build settings in the Property Pages dialog to the following:

Preprocessor Configuration – Select Properties, Configuration Properties, C/C++, Preprocessor.
For Preprocessor Definitions, add NDEBUG if not already included. Remove _DEBUG if present.

Precompiled Headers – Select Properties, Configuration Properties, C/C++, Precompiled Headers.
For Precompiled Header File, verify the path is set to .\Release...

Code Generation – Select Properties, Configuration Properties, C/C++, Code Generation.
Set Runtime Library to Mx-threaded DLL. Do not use (/Mxd).

Note: to verify your Release executable is not attempting to use a debug dll, verify
[project folder]\Releasexxx\[project name].exe.embed.manifest does not include
name=Microsoft.VC80.Debugxxx entries.