Hi all,
Work on a new win32 devlibs branch is currently in progress (see https://code.launchpad.net/~jazzynico/inkscape-devlibs/trunk). It's goal is to replace our old devlibs with the most recent ones, compiled with TDM-GCC-5.1. It's almost done, but there are some issues that will affect our win32 devlibs in a near future:
* Harfbuzz can't compile on Windows XP (but runs fine). Vista or 7 can be used instead (I'm going to test with a virtualboxed 7). Of course, Harfbuzz is required by lots of other libs (pango, rsvg, imagemagick, gtk...). * Glib doesn't compile on Windows XP and 7, due to recent changes in Glib-2.43. So we're stuck with 2.42.2. Side effect, we can't compile the latest glibmm and atkmm libs (and maybe others, I haven't try Gtk and Gtkmm yet...).
I don't know if it's directly related, but there's an old thread in the gnome mailing list that question Windows XP support (see https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2014-December/msg00055.html). Note that Gnome no longer provides binaries for XP on their download page (http://www.gtk.org/download/windows.php).
So be aware that maintaining Windows XP (and even win32) versions is going to be harder and harder...
I'm going work on the branch until it's done (or blocked), but I'm seriously considering switching to my old cross-compiled branch, which was far easier to maintain.
Regards, -- Nicolas