For my latest work, I am using the Qualnet simulator tool. Unfortunately, the version that I have access to is pretty old (version 4.0.1). Consequently, I had a lot of trouble getting it to compile in Windows 7. For those who are having the same trouble, see if what I did works for you:

  • This version of Qualnet is only compatible with Visual Studio 2005 (I have tried VS 2008 and VS 2010 - although I succeeded in compiling, the executable crashes all the time). Install VS 2005 if you can get hold of it, or install Visual C++ 2005 Express edition which is available for free.

  • The second thing that is essential for building Qualnet is Windows 7 SDK. Download and install this from Microsoft.

  • Once you have both these installed, run the vsvars32.bat file to set the right environment variables. vsvars32.bat is available in the following folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools\

  • Now try compiling qualnet. I used the following command inside c:\qualnet\4.0\main folder:

      nmake /f Makefile-windows-vc8

  • For most, the compilation will fail giving errors in oslrv2_nigata.cpp. So go ahead and comment out this file in the makefile present in qualnet\libraries\wireless\src

  • Try compiling again. Now the compiler would throw errors wherever routines from the file that we commented out. I had to comment out its usage wherever compilation broke.

  • Once I did that, compilation went smooth, and I was able to get qualnet working.