GDI+ library causes “error C2760: syntax error: unexpected token 'identifier', expected 'type specifier'” in VS2017 when compiled for XP

Question

I\'m trying to include the following definitions for GDI+ into my Win32 C++ project that is compiled under Visual Studio 2017:

#include 
#include         


        

Answer 1

There's a way to get this to work if you're prepared to edit the Windows header files.

In objbase.h, comment out line 239 or change it to:

static_assert (std::is_base_of <IUnknown *, *pp>::value, "pp must derive from IUnknown");

In gdiplusheaders.h, line 891, remove the redundant qualifier (Metafile::).

In gdiplusstringformat.h, line 220, remove the redundant qualifier (StringFormat::).

Hopefully, that will fix things for you without breaking anything.

Answer 2

Add this line before the very first(!) #include of COM-related header to fix objbase.h(239): error C2760: syntax error: unexpected token 'identifier', expected 'type specifier' :

typedef struct IUnknown IUnknown;

This fix works, because the line in objbase.h(239) mentioned in the error contains static_cast<IUnknown*>(*pp); despite that IUnknown still haven't been declared in that place.

Answer 3

I kinda got it to compile, but this is definitely not a good solution. I'm posting it here as a temp workaround until Microsoft gets their heads out of their ___es. Also if anyone finds a better way, please let me know.

I basically had to downgrade the entire project to Visual Studio 2015 - Windows XP (v140_xp) just to compile one badly written library:

This created a problem of its own with the std libraries:

1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include\cstdio(50): error C4995: 'sprintf': name was marked as #pragma deprecated
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include\cstdio(53): error C4995: 'vsprintf': name was marked as #pragma deprecated
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include\cstring(20): error C4995: 'strcat': name was marked as #pragma deprecated
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include\cstring(21): error C4995: 'strcpy': name was marked as #pragma deprecated
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include\cwchar(29): error C4995: 'swprintf': name was marked as #pragma deprecated
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include\cwchar(30): error C4995: 'vswprintf': name was marked as #pragma deprecated
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include\cwchar(32): error C4995: 'wcscat': name was marked as #pragma deprecated
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\include\cwchar(34): error C4995: 'wcscpy': name was marked as #pragma deprecated

So I had to shunt those errors of unsafe functions:

#pragma warning( push )
#pragma warning( disable: 4995 )
#include <stdio.h>
#include <new>
#include <string>
#pragma warning( pop )

Which is far from ideal!

(You're basically sacrificing security of the app just to compile that damn GDI+ library.)