Indicate that msvc64 is the default download for Windows

Jay Berkenbilt
1 parent d94e6958
Showing 3 changed files with 7 additions and 11 deletions
README-maintainer
README-what-to-download.md
TODO
@@ -486,7 +486,7 @@ gcurl -XPOST $url -d&#39;{&quot;draft&quot;: false}&#39;
 rsync -vrlcO ./ jay_berkenbilt,qpdf@frs.sourceforge.net:/home/frs/project/q/qp/qpdf/qpdf/$version/
 * On sourceforge, make the source package the default for all but
-  Windows, and make the 32-bit mingw build the default for Windows.
+  Windows, and make the 64-bit msvc build the default for Windows.
 * Publish a news item manually on sourceforge.
@@ -4,15 +4,15 @@ Windows Binaries
 You can download Windows binaries that are statically linked with qpdf's external dependencies and use the OpenSSL crypto provider. There are several options:
-* For Windows installers, you can download the `.exe` file for a traditional installer that allows relocation, or you can download the `.zip` file which you can unzip to any location.
+* For Windows installers, you can download the `.exe` file for a traditional installer that allows relocation, or you can download the `.zip` file which you can unzip to any location. Note that the `msvc` executables perform slightly better than the `mingw` executables.
-* `qpdf-<version>-bin-mingw32.exe` - 32-bit executables that should work on basically any Windows system, including 64-bit systems. The 32-bit executables are capable of handling files larger than 2 GB. If you just want to use the qpdf command line program or use the qpdf DLL's C-language interface, you can download this file.  You can also download this version if you are using MINGW's gcc and want to program using the C++ interface.
+* `qpdf-<version>-bin-msvc64.exe` - Use this for 64-bit Windows systems. This is the highest performance Windows release. It is usually the best choice for using qpdf from the command line. It is also the right choice if you are building non-Debug code for 64-bit systems using a recent version of Microsoft Visual C++.
-* `qpdf-<version>-bin-mingw64.exe` - A 64-bit version built with mingw.  Use this for 64-bit Windows systems.  The 32-bit version will also work on Windows 64-bit. Both the 32-bit and the 64-bit version support files over 2 GB in size, but you may find it easier to integrate this with your own software if you use the 64-bit version.
+* `qpdf-<version>-bin-mingw64.exe` - This is a 64-bit version built with mingw. Use this for 64-bit Windows systems if you want development libraries that work with the 64-bit version of mingw. If you are dynamically loading qpdf from the DLL, this version has fewer DLLs than the msvc version and does not require a Visual C++ runtime DLL. Unlike with the MSVC releases, it is possible to link a debugging build with mingw against non-debugging libraries built with mingw.
-* `qpdf-<version>-bin-msvc32.exe` - If you want to program using qpdf's C++ interface and you are using a recent version of Microsoft Visual C++ in 32-bit mode, you can download this file.
+* `qpdf-<version>-bin-msvc32.exe` - This is a 32-bit version built with MSVC. Use this if you need to run qpdf on a 32-bit system or if you are building 32-bit executables in non-Debug mode with Microsoft Visual C++. The 32-bit executables will work on 64-bit systems as well and are capable of working with files larger than 2 GB.
-* `qpdf-<version>-bin-msvc64.exe` - If you want to program using qpdf's C++ interface and you are using a recent version of Microsoft Visual C++ in 64-bit mode, you can download this file.
+* `qpdf-<version>-bin-mingw32.exe` - This is a 32-bit version built with mingw. It will work on 32-bit or 64-bit systems and can handle files larger than 2 GB.
 Linux Binaries
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ Virtually all Linux distributions include packages for qpdf. There is also a PPA
 * `qpdf-<version>-x86_64.AppImage` - If you'd like to run the latest version of qpdf as an [AppImage](https://appimage.org/), you can download this. This is a self-contained executable that you make symlink `qpdf` to and run on most reasonably recent Linux distributions. See README-appimage.md in the qpdf source distribution for additional details, or run the AppImage with the `--ai-usage` argument to get help specific to the AppImage.
-* `qpdf-<version>-bin-linux-x86_64.zip` - This is not intended to be an end-user distribution. It is a (nearly) stand-alone Linux binary, built using an Ubuntu LTS release. It contains the qpdf executables and shared libraries as well as dependent shared libraries that would not typically be present on a minimal system. This can be used to include qpdf in a minimal environment such as a docker container. It is also known to work as a layer in AWS Lambda and was initially created for that purpose.
+* `qpdf-<version>-bin-linux-x86_64.zip` - This is not intended to be an end-user distribution. It is a (nearly) stand-alone Linux binary, built using an Ubuntu LTS release. It contains the qpdf executables and shared libraries as well as dependent shared libraries that would not typically be present on a minimal system. This can be used to include qpdf in a minimal environment such as a docker container. It is also known to work as a layer in AWS Lambda and was initially created for that purpose. The executables have their runpath set to looks for the qpdf library in `../lib` relative to the location of the executables, which makes this distribution relocatable.
 Windows Build Support
@@ -9,10 +9,6 @@ Always
 Next
 ====
-* As an experiment, 11.1.1 has the qpdf-11.1.1-msvc64.exe as the
-  default download for Windows. If this works out, change
-  README-what-to-download.md and README-maintainer to reflect the
-  change.
 * Break ground on "Document-level work"
 Possible future JSON enhancements