Building Boost Lib 1.35 with VC++ 2008

Version 1.35 of the Boost libraries was released on March 29th, 2008.

Below are the steps I followed to have everything working on Win 7.

If not already done, install the following development tools (in the prescribed order, please):

Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition
Microsoft Windows SDK
Microsoft Compute Cluster Pack SDK

The last one will only be needed if you plan to compile the Boost.MPI library.

Download and install Python. Download Boost 1.35 and the latest Boost Jam binary (3.1.17 at the time of this writing). Copy the bjam executable to the Boost root directory. Next, disable the automatic linking features of the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler by enabling the BOOST_ALL_NO_LIB macro on the file user.hpp (boost/config/user.hpp). We’re ready to go (type all the commands inside the Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt):

“bjam stage”

Boost Jam auto detects the Visual C++ 2008 compiler!

If you want to compile the Boost.MPI library a couple of additional steps must be followed. Boost Jam is your friend as it prints it nicely for you:

warning: skipping optional Message Passing Interface (MPI) library.
note: to enable MPI support, add “using mpi ;” to user-config.jam.
note: to suppress this message, pass “–without-mpi” to bjam.
note: otherwise, you can safely ignore this message.

Follow the instructions. The user-config.jam is to be created in your “current” directory ($BOOST_ROOT_DIR\tools\build\v2).

Now build the Boost.MPI library by issuing:

“bjam –with-mpi stage”

The Microsoft MPI library is auto detected!

That is it! Happy Hacking :)