[Developers] MinGW "nasty problem"

Mon Dec 9 14:15:38 PST 2013

Hi John (and Johnoel) - Very interesting! I had a different version of my
report in which I blamed Windows for everything. I knew that the weird
message pop-up came from Windows, but some of the MinGW people also claimed
that the hard drive letter I: was embedded in their binary code.

For the record, according to the fellow you cited on YouTube, a real fix
would set the registry value 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows
  ErrorMode = 2

from its default 0. Unfortunately, this turns off all error messages, but
that's par for Microsoft. You've probably found a way around the problem.
Thanks!

Despite your antipathy to Windows (which I share), I think it's important
that we get ADMB to work on that platform. Furthermore, we obviously need to
support 64-bit compilers, so that brings us inevitably to MinGW-w64 if we
want to stay within the realm of open source software.

Johnoel, I'd really appreciate knowing your reaction to all this, because it
would significantly change your instructions for a Quick Start on Windows.
Given the response from Wade Cooper this morning, I'm assuming that we have
a viable solution with MinGW-w64 (although it still doesn't work for me).

How does the ADMB foundation go about making a decision like this?

Thanks again,

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: John Sibert [mailto:sibert at hawaii.edu] 
Sent: December-09-13 10:31 AM
To: Jon Schnute; 'Johnoel Ancheta'; developers at admb-project.org
Cc: 'Haigh, Rowan'; 'Cooper, Wade'
Subject: Re: MinGW "nasty problem"

Hi Jon,
Thanks for the useful analysis. It certainly clarifies the situation with
respect to MinGW. I''l give your proposed solution a try when Karen
authorizes me to use her computer.

I do not believe, however, that the problem is strictly caused by MingGW. A
bit of quick work searching on the string "there is no disk in the
drive.please insert a disk into drive" reveals that "Microsoft has confirmed
that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the
beginning of this article." 
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330137). Other hits propose editing the
registry to suppress (all?) error messages, eg
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-system/there-is-n
o-disk-in-the-drive-please-insert-a-disk/c8e0c1bd-18f6-4799-a9fb-67bedff9bc9
f
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7khU0ZY9gBU

It may be that MinGW is not written in a way to avoid this Windows
"feature".

That being said, your proposed software alternatives seem reasonable, at
least to a person who avoids microsoft products as much as possible.

John

John Sibert
Emeritus Researcher, SOEST
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu HI (GMT-10)
808-294-3842

Visit the ADMB project http://admb-project.org/

On 12/08/2013 10:40 PM, Jon Schnute wrote:
> Hi John - Your experience with the MinGW "nasty problem" matches mine 
> exactly. I've done a lot of research on this, and I've written the 
> attached report "MinGW problem with drives that don't exist". I think 
> you'll find that it offers a credible explanation. It contains many 
> Internet links that connect you with other sources.
>
> Along with other developers (cited in the report), I've concluded that 
> the original MinGW project has fallen off the rails and can no longer 
> be considered reliable. We need to move to the independent new project 
> MinGW-w64. In the long run, we need to do this anyway to get 64-bit
support.
>
> I hope my little report convinces everyone involved. I'm copying Wade 
> Cooper on this because he reported success with ADMB in the message he 
> sent on November 18.
>
> In my next message, I'll send my recommendations for the explicit 
> software I think we should use.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jon
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Sibert [mailto:sibert at hawaii.edu]
> Sent: December-06-13 9:54 AM
> To: Jon Schnute; 'Johnoel Ancheta'; developers at admb-project.org
> Cc: 'Haigh, Rowan'
> Subject: Re: [Developers] Big changes in Revision 1438
>
> Hi Jon,
> Thank you for your patience in testing this stuff. It can be onerous 
> in windows.
>
> Regarding the "nasty problem with MinGW" that you mentioned, I may 
> have encountered something similar.
>
> I was trying to install admb on my wife's new windows 7 machine and 
> the procedure ran smoothly until it started to build the libraries. As 
> soon as it started to compile the first source file, the system popped 
> up an error window titled "g++" containing the error message "There is 
> no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk in drive
\Device\Harddisk2\DR2."
> Further experimentation revealed the error window any time g++ starts.
> So it appears not to be anything to do with admb; it is an 
> windows/mingw issue.
>
> Searching for a solution was pretty fruitless. I lot of know-nothing 
> responses to similar questions and BS remarks from microsoft flacks 
> about how important solving the problem is to microsoft. But the 
> responses pointed to usb drive issues.
>
> So I'm wonder if this is the "nasty problem" you mentioned, and if so, 
> how it was solved.
>
> Cheers,
> John
>
>
> John Sibert
> Emeritus Researcher, SOEST
> University of Hawaii at Manoa
> Honolulu HI (GMT-10)
> 808-294-3842
>
> Visit the ADMB project http://admb-project.org/
>
> On 12/05/2013 11:17 PM, Jon Schnute wrote:
>> I've tested revisions 1444 and 1447 on Windows 7 using Msys and 
>> MinGW, obtained independently from the Internet. The build process 
>> worked in both cases with no problems. Also, the executable files and 
>> scripts in ..\build\dist successfully converted .tpl files to .exe files.
>>
>> In the process, I discovered a nasty problem with MinGW that stems 
>> from a bug in Windows. It will occur if you connect and disconnect a 
>> USB drive before using MinGW.
>>
>> I'm planning to write installation instructions that document exactly 
>> what I've done, along with a warning about the potential MinGW 
>> problem and its resolution. I'll circulate this document when I have a
draft.
>>
>> I should add that Rowan Haigh, using the official QuickStart 
>> procedure on revision 1444, encountered the problem with "banner.cpp" 
>> that I've described in earlier email. When we have the opportunity, 
>> we'll check into this further and send a bug report if we can reproduce
the problem.
>>
>> Again, thanks to everyone for your good work cleaning up the code.
>>
>> Jon
>>
>> *From:*developers-bounces at admb-project.org
>> [mailto:developers-bounces at admb-project.org] *On Behalf Of *Johnoel 
>> Ancheta
>> *Sent:* December-05-13 1:32 AM
>> *To:* developers at admb-project.org
>> *Subject:* [Developers] Big changes in Revision 1438
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> The ADMB build files have again been reworked and improved. After 
>> getting
>>
>> feedback,
>>
>> * the build files have been simplified a bit more
>>
>> - Dave Fournier
>>
>> * works with Rtools (but not with Rtools->make)
>>
>> - Jon Schnute
>>
>> * should build in Windows if Msys or Rtools are in the system PATH
>>
>> A lot of time and effort was spent by everyone to test and develop
>>
>> the build scripts.
>>
>> Please test the installation by following documentation in
>>
>> http://www.admb-project.org/buildbot/documentation/
>>
>> Changes and QuickStart pages are in the the directory.
>>
>> Thanks to everyone who participated in the testing.
>>
>> Johnoel
>>
>>
>>
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>