msvc: rustc produces invalid .exe (Windows XP)

[liigo]

I use latest toolchain stable-i686-pc-windows-msvc and VC-2015 on Windows 10, compile a helloworld.exe (which is valid on Windows 10), and try to run it in XP, but the OS tells me that it's an invalid executable.

Maybe we should have an option to use Windows Kit (SDK) 7.1 (v140_xp toolset etc.)?

I known firefox is using some rust components, which I don't known how they are compiled for XP.

cc rust-lang/rfcs#1061 #25350 #30233 #26601

Refs:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj851139.aspx
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33188600/how-to-set-v140-xp-toolset-in-command-prompt-for-build-with-nmake

[Aatch]

Well it sounds like you're not compiling for the correct target. If the problem is that you can't compile for the correct, that's the issue, but from the description it doesn't seem like rustc is producing an invalid .exe.

[liigo]

@Aatch
rustc produces a valide .exe (32bit) on Windows 10, but this .exe is invalid on Windows XP.
I didn't use cross compile. If I must cross compile, which target I should select to create a valid .exe for XP? (I'm using stable-i686-pc-windows-msvc toolchain on Windows 10.)

[alexcrichton]

Yes i686-pc-windows-msvc is the right target, but you have to pass a special linker flag to produce an executable that runs on XP. I think it's something like /subsystem:windows,5.01 or related. I don't think this is a bug with the compiler per se, so I'm going to close, but feel free to ask me if it doesn't work out!

[liigo]

Thank you! It works! @alexcrichton
FWIW, my full command line is: rustc main.rs -C link-args="/subsystem:console,5.01"
(I did try /subsystem:console,6.01 (which not work))