Microsoft KB Archive/40464

PRB: INCLUDE Path Longer Than 71 Bytes Causes RC EXEC Failure ID Number: Q40464

2.03 2.10 WINDOWS buglist2.03 buglist2.10 fixlist3.00

Summary:

SYMPTOMS Setting the MS-DOS environment variable INCLUDE to a long string (more than 71 characters) causes the version of RC.EXE included with the Windows version 2.03 or 2.10 SDK (Software Development Kit) to fail with the following error message:

EXEC Failed - make sure RCPP.EXE is installed correctly. This error occurs even though RCPP is installed correctly.

CAUSE The RC (Resource Compiler) passes all arguments to RCPP via the MS-DOS command line, which is limited to 127 bytes. Include paths are processed by RC and passed to RCPP via -I switches. Therefore, INCLUDE paths are included in the 127-byte limit.

RESOLUTION Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the version of RC included with the Windows versions 2.03 and 2.10 SDK. This problem was corrected in the version of RC included with the Windows version 3.00 SDK. In the version of RC included with the Windows version 3.00 SDK, arguments are passed in an environment variable of arbitrary length.