Using third party C++ libraries in a windows desktop application

Question

I am a self taught software engineer. I am building a desktop application that needs to work on 64 bit windows 7 system.

I am planning to integrate a third party library called FCL C++. In FCL's official documentation page it is stated that it can be built from source on unix or win32 systems.

My question is, if I build a win32 dll of FCl in Windows, would I be able to use it in my win64 application? If not then is there any other ways to go about this?

I am currently developing the software in windows 10, using CMAKE and Qt. Would developing in Linux would be better in this case?

Answer 1

Win32 is a legacy name of the the API set and platform. It applies to both 32 bit and 64 bit Windows. When you build the DLL, you can choose the output to be a it for 32-bit or 64-bit binary in Visual Studio.

While a 64-bit Windows OS can run a 32-bit program (EXE), a 64-bit process EXE can't load a 32-bit DLL. Just build a Win32 DLL for either 32-bit or 64-bit depending on what type of EXE you are building for.

If you are unsure, just build everything (DLL, LIB, EXE) for 32-bit since that runs everywhere.