Re: Windows 7 64bit - use 32bit or 64bit Vim?

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:19 PM, David Fishburn <dfishburn.vim@gmail.com> wrote:

I regularily build my on Vim using VS 2008.

I have just been upgraded to Windows 7 64bit and am beginning to set it up.

Seems you always have to choose if you want (or can use) the 32bit
version of software or find a 64bit version.

Now, since I build my own Vim, I guess I can get VS 2008 to build me a
64bit version of Vim.
Here are my problems:

1.  I use Perl plugins daily (Perl64 exists).
2.  I use Python 2.5 (not that often, but a few plugins which use it),
I am not certain if a 64 bit version of this exists.
3.  All my other plugins written in VimScript should of course be fine.

Even if I can compile my Vim using the 64bit Perl version, I am not
certain if my perl modules have 64bit versions, or should that all be
resolved when I simply install them?  Or do the authors have to make
64bit changes to make them work in the first place?

Just looking for some feedback on what others have done on the 64bit
versions of Windows which are available these days.

I'm the maintainer of http://code.google.com/p/vim-win3264/. The main reason for the existence of the Win64 version is Explorer integration. You have to have a 64-bit version of gvimext.dll on Win64, so that you can right-click in Explorer and get Vim-related commands. The other reason for the Win64 version is my quixotic quest to make Vim run cleanly on Win64. It's hard to imagine anyone truly needing >4GB for their Vim process address space.

The actual (g)vim.exe binary doesn't need to be 64-bit. Win32 binaries run fine on Win64. Indeed, it's simpler to build a 32-bit (g)vim.exe, as all the language DLLs need to be available in 64-bit flavors too. The only language that I know for sure works as a native Win64 DLL is Python 2.6. Even that has problems if you're trying to run Python C extensions, since you have to figure out how to get a Win64 build of the C extension. I gave up the last time I tried. I'm using the 32-bit version of Python 2.6 on Win64.  (I think the Win64 support in Python 2.5 is not recommended.)

I tried to build Vim with Ruby 1.9 DLL support earlier this month. I abandoned the effort when I realized that the MinGW headers included with Ruby 1.9 weren't going to compile with the MSVC compiler.

I've never tried to get a 64-bit version of Perl running with Win64 Vim.

I think a better solution would be a smarter Windows installer for Vim which included Win32 and Win64 copies of gvimext.dll and a Win32 gvim.exe, that installed the appropriate flavor of the shell extension DLL.

-- 
/George V. Reilly  george@reilly.org  Twitter: @georgevreilly
http://www.georgevreilly.com/blog  http://blogs.cozi.com/tech

 

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