Using Intel Visual Fortran with Windows 7

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Even though Intel does not claim support for Windows 7, I know many people will want to try using Intel Visual Fortran on Windows 7, especially with the "Release Candidate" build being made freely available (to MSDN/TechNet subscribers now, to all on May 5.) I have done some simple testing and want to share my observations based on build 7000 (the "preview" from February) and Visual Studio 2008. While I don't know that VS2005 would be any different, I think Microsoft won't be supporting VS2005 on Windows 7. I will also be testing on build 7100 (the Release Candidate) soon and will update my findings here.

For the most part, I found that everything works just as it does on Windows Vista. There is one major glitch, though, which is a Microsoft bug and acknowledged as such in the Windows 7 Beta SDK Release Notes. The symptom is that when you do a build and the Manifest Tool (mt.exe) runs, you may get the error:

mt.exe : general error c101008d: Failed to write the updated manifest to the resource of file
"". The binary is not a valid Windows image.


The class of application that will have this problem is one that does not have a resource section, such as a normal Fortran console application. It appears to be due to a bug in the Windows 7 implementation of Address Space Layout Randomization, first introduced in Windows Vista.

There are (at least) three workarounds:

1. Add a resource section to the application. In Visual Studio, you can do this by selecting Project > Add New Item > Resource File. You don't have to put anything in the resource file if you don't want to.
2. Set the linker option /DYNAMICBASE:NO. This is property Linker > Advanced > Randomized Base Address
3. Disable manifest file generation (Linker > Manifest > Generate Manifest)

I assume that Microsoft will fix this before release, and perhaps it is already fixed in build 7100. We shall see.

I am indebted to John Robbins and his blog entry that described the problem in detail.

Intel will be doing more formal testing of its products on Windows 7 and will make claims of support when it is appropriate. I have not yet tested other Intel development tools under Windows 7.

[nvaneck]

Works fine for me, but I had a manifest problem even with a resource section, so I disabled the manifest. I can't remember the exact error messaage.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

My initial test on Build 7100 shows that the MT.EXE problem is gone.

[Ferdinando_Alde]

I'm started using W7 and Fortran/VS2008 from the beta version and with the RC all works well. And the MT.EXE problem is solved.

I got also some problem in the generations of interface blocks, but also this thing seems to be disappeared.