Frequently Asked Questions
The binary installers for Visual C++ 6.0 and Visual C++ 7.1 do not include the Slice compilers for Java, C#, Visual Basic, and Python. (These language mappings are only included in the installer for Visual C++ 8.0, aka Visual C++ 2005.)
If you want to use Ice with both Visual C++ 6.0/7.1 and one or more of the other languages, you need to download the installers for Visual C++ 6.0 or 7.1, plus the installer for Visual C++ 8.0. First run the installer for Visual C++ 6.0 or 7.1. The default installation directories for these installers carry a Visual C++ version number, such as C:\Ice-3.2.0-VC60 and C:\Ice-3.2.0-VC71, respectively. Then run the installer for Visual C++ 8.0; the default installation directory only carries the Ice version number, but no version for Visual C++, for example, C:\Ice-3.2.0. When you run the Visual C++ 8.0 installer, choose custom setup. You can select the additional languages you want to use with Ice. For example, if you are only interested in development support for Java and C#, you can deselect everything else.
Having done this, you will end up with two Ice installations, one for Ice for Visual C++ 6.0/7.1, and a second one that provides the Slice compilers and run-time support for the additional languages you select. For example, if you select Java development, you will find the slice2java compiler in C:\Ice-3.2.0\bin, and JAR files in C:\Ice-3.2.0\lib.
To compile Ice for Java applications, you need the slice2java compiler provided by the Visual C++ 8.0 installation. This means that you must set your PATH correctly when you run slice2java: your PATH must point at C:\Ice-3.2.0\bin. Similarly, your Java CLASSPATH must include C:\Ice-3.2.0\ant if you want to compile the demo applications and, at run time, the CLASSPATH of your Ice for Java applications must include C:\Ice-3.2.0\lib\Ice.jar (and C:\Ice-3.2.0\lib\db.jar if your applications use Freeze).
Similar considerations apply for other language mappings: the Slice compilers are provided by the Visual C++ 8.0 installation so, when using the Slice compilers (slice2cs, slice2vb, or slice2py), you must ensure that your PATH includes C:\Ice-3.2.0\bin instead of C:\Ice-3.2.0-VC60\bin or C:\Ice-3.2.0-VC71\bin.
To run C# and Visual Basic applications, no further configuration
is necessary; the Ice assemblies are installed in the global assembly cache (GAC), so there is no need to set environment variables to point at an installation directory.
To run Python applications, you need to direct the Python interpreter at the Ice extension for Python, that is, the application’s PYTHONPATH must include C:\Ice-3.2.0\python.