Visual Studio is a great tool. Most developers who can use it should.
Currently OpenSim has some problems with 64-bit mode. This is because we have some native .dll's and .so's such as:
- SQlite
- ODE
- OpenJpeg
- + more
SQLite you can do without by choosing MySQL or similar. But the rest is a bit more difficult.
See http://www.adamfrisby.com/blog/2008/08/running-opensim-under-a-64-bit-environment/ for more info.
To solve this problem we have a file named "OpenSim.32BitLaunch.exe" which is compiled with CPU target set to 32-bit. This in term loads OpenSim.exe as a standard module and executes it.
But this is only from command line. If you want all the glory of debugging that Visual Studio provides then this workaround will work:
- Download the OpenSim source as usual, run prebuild as usual.
- Open OpenSim.sln in Visual Studio.
- Right click solution and choose Add->Existing Project...
- Browse to "OpenSim\Tools\OpenSim.32BitLaunch" and add the project "OpenSim.32BitLaunch".
- Right click project called "OpenSim.32BitLaunch" and choose "Set as StartUp Project".
And OpenSim will run from Visual Studio on 64-bit Windows...