Building C-Kermit for Windows is easy! All you need is a compiler for Windows (Visual C++ 2019 Community Edition recommended). The compiler you choose will determine what features are available and the minimum version of windows your build of CKW will support. You can use the linked table to help choose the compiler that best meets your needs if you're looking to run on versions of Windows older than XP or CPU architectures other than x86 and ARM.
If you wish to also build the Dialer (entirely optional), you'll need ideally a copy of Visual C++ 6.0 SP6. OpenWatcom 1.9 is also supported but due to a lack of support for CTRL3D32 in that compiler the resulting application will look like something from Windows 3.1.
If you're using MinGW, see Building with MinGW - the content below only applies to Visual C++ and OpenWatcom.
Firstly put the source code somewhere convenient. Where ever you put it, you
need to edit setenv.bat in the root of the folder to point to your source
code location. Uncomment the line REM set root=C:\src near the top of the
file and set the value to where your source code lives, for example
set root=C:\dev\ckwin, then save the file.
If you want to build with SSH support you must first build libssh and all of its dependencies.
The easiest and quickest way to do this is to use vcpkg:
vcpkg install libssh
You'll then need to edit setenv.bat again and, under the Optional Dependencies
heading, you'll need to uncomment the vcpkg_installed variable and set it to
the location where you installed vcpkg so the C-Kermit for Windows build process
can find libssh:
REM If you've installed these dependencies using vcpkg, set the following
REM to the vcpkg installed directory (where the include, lib and bin
REM subdirectories are) and ignore the rest.
set vcpkg_installed=C:\vcpkg\installed\x86-windows
If you'd rather build it all yourself, see
Optional Dependencies for instructions. You don't
need to edit setenv.bat any further for this if you're using the same versions
of the optional dependencies.
The Dialer is an entirely optional component of C-Kermit for Windows. To build it you'll need to grab a copy of OpenZinc 1.0 from the OpenZinc Website. The full package is the one you need - "OpenZinc Engine, DOS, all Windows, OS/2, Unicode (zip)". This includes source and binaries for a selection of compilers.
Unzip the OpenZinc distribution to the zinc subdirectory directly under the
source root so that the following files exist in the following locations
relative to each other:
\setenv.bat
\mkzinc.bat
\kermit\k95\ckoker.mak
\zinc\copymak.bat
If you're building with OpenWatcom, this is all that should be required - when you run setenv.bat it will detect the presence of OpenZinc and add it to the build environment so that you can build the Dialer. You can skip ahead to the build step
If you're using Visual C++ you've got to rebuild OpenZinc as the default build configuration included in the OpenZinc distribution is unsuitable (linked against the wrong C runtime). If you've got a supported version of Visual C++ this process should be pretty painless.
To start with, open \zinc\SOURCE\UI_ENV.HPP in your preferred editor and
uncomment line 40:
#define ZIL_MSWINDOWS_CTL3D // Use CTL3DV2.DLL (3D look). For Windows only. This will enable 3D Windows 95-style widgets (or the native widgets on XP and newer). This is only necessary for Visual C++ older than 2010.
Next run \setenv.bat. This should detect your compiler, the presence of
OpenZinc and the fact you don't have a suitable build of it for your compiler
available. You'll get a message along the lines of:
OpenZinc is required for building the dialer. You can build it by extracting
the OpenZinc distribution to C:\dev\ckw\zinc and running
C:\dev\ckw\mkzinc.bat
As instructed, just run mkzinc.bat to build OpenZinc. On a modern PC it doesn't take very long.
- Open a console and change directory to where the source code is located
- Setup the Visual C++ or OpenWatcom build environment by running the appropriate batch file for your compiler. Some examples are:
REM Visual C++ 2008:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat
REM Visual C++ 2019:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64_x86 -vcvars_ver=14.2
REM Visual C++ 2022, 64bit:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64 -vcvars_ver=14.3
REM OpenWatcom:
C:\watcom\owsetenv.bat
- Setup the C-Kermit build environment by running
setenv.bat - CD into
kermit\p95 - run
mknt.batto build the X/Y/Z Modem library - CD into
..\k95 - run
mknt.batto build the console version and some related bits - run
mkg.batto build the GUI version (k95g.exe) - run
mkdist.batto collect everything you built plus any redistributable dependencies intokermit\k95\dist
Done! Depending on the Visual C++ version you're using you may need to also
distribute the Visual C++ runtime with CKW. If you built with OpenWatcom the
runtime libraries should have already been copied there for you but if they
weren't you'll need to grab clbr19.dll mt719.dll plbr19.dll from the watcom
binnt subdirectory.
To build the dialer, run setenv.bat as you normally would for building
C-Kermit, then:
cd kermit\dialer
mk.bat
mkdist.bat
This should leave you with the directory kermit\dialer\dist containing the
following files:
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| COPYING.LESSOR.txt | LGPL License text |
| dialer.dat | Zinc data file containing all the dialer UI bits |
| k95dial.exe | The C-Kermit for Windows Dialer |
| k95dial.exe.manifest | Makes the dialer fit in very slightly better on modern windows |
| p_direct.znc | ? |
| p_servic.znc | ? |
All files are required for the dialer to work normally.
When built with Visual C++ 6.0 or older the dialer relies on ctl3d32 to get the Windows 95 look and feel (rather than the "16bit app on Windows 95" look and feel). Ctl3d32 is not available for OpenWatcom or newer versions of Visual C++ so when built with these the dialer will have the 2D "16bit app on Windows 95" look.
In order to be used ctl3d32.dll must be installed correctly on the users machine - it can't simply be distributed in the CKW folder like other DLLs. To further complicate matters, there are two different versions of ctl3d32 and the correct one for the users operating system must be installed. The ANSI version is for Windows 95/98/ME and the Unicode version is for Windows NT and its descendants (including Windows Xp/7/8/10/11).
You can get both versions of Ctl3d32 from your Visual C++ CD-ROM:
| Visual C++ Version | ANSI (for 95/98/ME) | Unicode (for NT/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10/11) |
|---|---|---|
| Visual C++ 6.0 | \VC98\REDIST\ANSI\CTL3D32.DLL |
\VC98\REDIST\CTL3D32.DLL |
| Visual C++ 5.0 | \DEVSTUDIO\VC\REDIST\ANSI\CTL3D32.DLL |
\DEVSTUDIO\VC\REDIST\CTL3D32.DLL |
| Visual C++ 4.x | \MSDEV\REDIST\ANSI\CTL3D32.DLL |
\MSDEV\REDIST\CTL3D32.DLL |
| Visual C++ 2.x | \MSVC20\REDIST\ANSI\CTL3D32.DLL |
\MSVC20\REDIST\CTL3D32.DLL |
The appropriate version of ctl3d32.dll can be installed on the users machine using ctl3dins.exe
which is produced as part of the standard CKW build procedure. This relies on having both versions of
ctl3d32.dll present in the CKW folder alongside ctl3dins.exe. To use it, the ANSI version of ctl3d32.dll
must be renamed to ctl3d95.dll and the Unicode version to ctl3dnt.dll, then distribute them
alongside ctl3dins.exe with the rest of C-Kermit for Windows.
When the user runs ctl3dins.exe if ctl3d32.dll isn't installed it will rename the appropriate version for the users operating system (ctl3dnt.dll or ctl3d95.dll) back to ctl3d32.dll and install it. If it was built with Visual C++ 2.0 it will also install msvcrt20.dll if necessary.
Historically Kermit 95 was, since v1.1.10, distributed with a utility called k95cinit.exe. This tool is only required to correct an issue relating to COM port devices on Windows 95 versions prior to OSR2 described here.
It's pretty unlikely anyone will ever run into the issue this tool solves in the 2020s so building it is highly optional - C-Kermit for Windows will work just fine on modern systems without it.
If you'd like to build this utility anyway, Visual C++ 1.5 is required along with OpenZinc 1.0.
To build it, open a command prompt and run something like the following from the root of your C-Kermit source directory (eg, C:\src):
C:\src> C:\msvc\bin\msvcvars.bat
C:\src> setenv.bat
OpenZinc found!
Your compiler is: Visual C++ 1.0 (16-bit)
This compiler is only supported for building the k95cinit.exe utility.
You can build that now by running mk.bat
C:\src\kermit\dialer\init> mk.bat
The CKW setenv.bat script will detect your environment is set up for the 16bit
Visual C++ 1.x compiler (due to running msvcvars.bat) and will configure the
environment specially for building k95cinit.exe. All you have to do from there
is run mk.bat to do the build, and optionally mkdist.bat to copy all the
required files to \kermit\dialer\dist
If you don't have OpenZinc installed you may see a different message instructing you to build OpenZinc first - this will leave the current directory unchanged.
C-Kermit for Windows uses nmake makefiles to build. nmake doesn't know how to schedule builds on more than one CPU so if you're building with Visual C++ on a computer with multiple processors you can reduce build times significantly by using a compatible build tool that is aware of multiple processors.
JOM is regularly tested with CKW and works well with
all versions of Visual C++ (if you're building on a modern version of Windows).
Just Download and unzip it
somewhere on your path, then before running setenv.bat run set MAKE=jom:
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\path\to\jom
set MAKE=jom
setenv.bat
You can also build recent versions of OpenSSL with JOM. Just add -FS to the end
of the Configure command and then run jom instead of nmake. For example:
perl Configure VC-WIN32 zlib-dynamic --with-zlib-include=C:\path\to\ckwin\zlib\1.2.13 -FS
jom
Note that at the time of writing OpenSSL doesn't officially support JOM (see this ticket) so while it works fine with current released versions there is always the possibility of it breaking in the future.