Notes for Windows users

This release of Boost will by default compile for Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008, if the compiler supports a recent enough Windows SDK, and for Windows XP otherwise. Binaries compiled with default options may not run on the older Windows versions.

It is still possible to explicitly specify target Windows version by defining BOOST_USE_WINAPI_VERSION to a numeric version of Windows API. For example, building Boost for Windows XP can be done with the following command:

b2 release define=BOOST_USE_WINAPI_VERSION=0x0501

The list of Windows API version numbers can be seen on this page.

This change only concerns libraries that use the common Windows API abstraction layer. Currently, these libraries are: Boost.Chrono, Boost.Dll, Boost.Log, Boost.UUID. This will also affect all dependent libraries.