wimlib

The current way to build wimlib on Windows is difficult. I hope this change can make it buildable with Visual Studio.

Switching to CMake is something that I'm thinking about, but I don't work on wimlib much anymore.

Note that just switching to CMake would not be enough to allow wimlib to be built with Visual Studio. Many more changes would be required for that.

For now, building Windows binaries of wimlib on Windows using Cygwin and MinGW is documented in the README.WINDOWS file. Please let me know if you have any issues with it.

But when building on cygwin, no Export Definition File (.def file) was created, which is required to create a Visual C compatible import library.

It's definitely possible to create an import library (or a def file; isn't it only one or the other that's needed?) using the MinGW toolchain. A patch to do that and include it in the Windows release zip files would be appreciated!

Sorry, I forgot: the import library is already in the releases. It's the file devel/libwim.lib.

Are you sure you need a .def file too?

Yes, because the official binary release may not turn on optimization of it, and some feature may not enabled. Build from source code can fix these problems.

What do you mean by "may not turn on optimization of it, and some feature may not enabled"? What is preventing you from using the official binary release?

Anyway, if you need to build from source code anyway due to your own modifications, why do you care what files are in the binary release?