[gdal-dev] windows install - best practices? install from source, or from precompiled binaries?

[timbodin at comcast.net]

I'm working reasonably successfully with GDAL as a learner, in command line
mode using warp and translate, and then from within C++ in Visual Studio.  I
had first used GDAL from Python a year or two ago, before resuming pretty
intensely via C++ recently.

 

I had a problem with my PC, so I went to a new machine in the last few days.
Oh my, how little nitty things can challenge, to restabilize, particularly
when I don't have complete understanding of what I am doing.

 

Things are finally working, but I didn't get there in a straight line at
all, and I might have some redundant stuff on my new machine, so I'd like
some advice please.

 

Specifically, I think I installed twice unnecessarily, as follows:

 

1.	I did the install from source using the
https://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/DownloadSource page, then followed this
youtube video for every detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf8rYOfvZjY.
With a couple of tweaks, I ended up with all the GDAL folders and files in
one directory, c:\gdal.
2.	I did a much simpler install of .msi precompiled binaries using the
Generic Installer for the Core components from:
http://www.gisinternals.com/.  I ended up with all the x64 gdal libraries in
C:\Program Files\GDAL.  This youtube was helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQt9tmfl-x8 

 

Things would not work...I got some post-compile execution errors about not
being able to find gdal203.dll.  I found this youtube video (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKTeNVvF4gM  ) that guided me to fix my path
variables, something I had done long ago in the Python period, and
overlooked in recent thrashing. 

 

In setting path and system variables in the last stage, I came to believe
that I had installed GDAL twice, though there was a small difference.  There
was no gdalplugins files it seems from step 1, they were from step 2.  So I
pointed the all 3 environment settings at the C:\Program Files\GDAL sections
from step 2.

 

Now when building a C++ console app (they are working), I'm manually setting
include libraries for gdal, apps, gcore, port, and ogr to the c:\gdal area
in step 1, and to c:\gdal\gdal_i.lib from step 1.  It seems bizarre what I
am doing, pointing to both area 1 (libs) and area 2 (paths), but things for
now are working.

 

Can someone please share some "best practices" insight for setup for the
benefit of this novice (me), so I hopefully can clean up the messy stuff I
have created and that I am doing?  I'm pretty sure what I am doing is screwy
and far from best practices!  

 

 

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