It's certainly possible to develop on a Windows machine, in fact, my first application was exclusively developed on the old Dell Precision I had at the time :)
There are three routes;
- Install OSx86 (aka iATKOS / Kalyway) on a second partition/disk and dual boot.
- Run Mac OS X Server under VMWare (Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, read the update below).
- Use Delphi XE4 and the macincloud service. This is a commercial toolset, but the component and lib support is growing.
The first route requires modifying (or using a pre-modified) image of Leopard that can be installed on a regular PC. This is not as hard as you would think, although your success/effort ratio will depend upon how closely the hardware in your PC matches that in Mac hardware - e.g. if you're running a Core 2 Duo on an Intel Motherboard, with an NVidia graphics card you are laughing. If you're running an AMD machine or something without SSE3 it gets a little more involved.
If you purchase (or already own) a version of Leopard then this is a gray area since the Leopard EULA states you may only run it on an "Apple Labeled" machine. As many point out if you stick an Apple sticker on your PC you're probably covered.
The second option is more costly. The EULA for the workstation version of Leopard prevents it from being run under emulation and as a result, there's no support in VMWare for this. Leopard server, however, CAN be run under emulation and can be used for desktop purposes. Leopard server and VMWare are expensive, however.
If you're interested in option 1) I would suggest starting at Insanelymac and reading the OSx86 sections.
I do think you should consider whether the time you will invest is going to be worth the money you will save though. It was for me because I enjoy tinkering with this type of stuff and I started during the early iPhone betas, months before their App Store became available.
Alternatively, you could pick up a low-spec Mac Mini from eBay. You don't need much horsepower to run the SDK and you can always sell it on later if you decide to stop development or buy a better Mac.
Update: You cannot create a Mac OS X Client virtual machine for OS X 10.6 and earlier. Apple does not allow these Client OSes to be virtualized. With Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, Apple has changed its licensing agreement in regards to virtualization. Source: VMWare KnowledgeBase
A pseudo environment variable named errorlevel
stores the exit code:
echo Exit Code is %errorlevel%
Also, the if
command has a special syntax:
if errorlevel
See if /?
for details.
Example
@echo off
my_nify_exe.exe
if errorlevel 1 (
echo Failure Reason Given is %errorlevel%
exit /b %errorlevel%
)
Warning: If you set an environment variable name errorlevel
, %errorlevel%
will return that value and not the exit code. Use (set errorlevel=
) to clear the environment variable, allowing access to the true value of errorlevel
via the %errorlevel%
environment variable.
Best Answer
Have a look at Google's Omaha project. I once looked into using it. But I eventually realized it would be easier to re-invent the wheel than to learn everything that goes into making Omaha work. Unfortunately I have yet to find a generic solution. Most project's I've looked into tend to build their own updater.
Which is bad, because everyone tends to make the same mistakes over and over again. Doing secure updates isn't trivial. Read this: Auto update: Is this secure?
I also find it rather annoying how every auto updater thinks it needs to be running 24/7 in my system notification area.
I would venture to say that one of the main advantages of of the app store model is that developers don't have to worry about building an update system.