Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 23rd Dec 2009 23:49 UTC, submitted by diegocg
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Member since:
2007-09-08
SFU is not an appropriate solution.
First, it is not included and installed by default on any shipping version of Windows, and never has been. Current Windows Server versions (may) include it, but it's not installed by default.
Second, it doesn't work on all versions of Windows. It's completely unavailable on the "Home" versions of Windows XP, Vista, and 7. The only people who could install SFU are businesses, individuals who actually bought a copy of XP Pro or Vista / 7 Ultimate, and pirates. Everyone else it out of luck.
Third, the versions are tied to specific versions of Windows, and each version is markedly different. Notably, the only available version for Windows XP uses ancient versions of the compiler (either MSVC or GCC), and lacks lots of features that are present in Cygwin.
It's really intended for businesses that have Unix applications they want to run on Windows. That's all it really does, and because it's positioned as a business feature, it's only available in the business versions of Windows (and the I-have-more-money-than-sense versions).
Regardless, it's not a replacement for MinGW anyway. MinGW produces native Win32 binaries, which work without any runtime, on any version of Windows. Neither Cygwin or SFU do that.
As for virtualization... that might work, but it's still a much more heavyweight solution.