note
pKai
<p>I don't know about the anti-MS motivation.</p>
<p>When MS changed from 16-Bit DOS to 32-Bit Windows [95] the then current nmake 1.4 (included in MSVC 1.5) exposed a massive bug in the new 32-Bit environment.</p>
<p>As a consequence MS published a bugfix (KB132084) which offered the fix (nmake 1.5) as a freely available download for that program, which was otherwise only available as part of the commercial MSVC.</p>
<p>Also in later years nmake was only available as part of the payware compiler. When did MS start to give compilers away for free (aka Express editions ?)</p>
<p>So at the time of nmake 1.5 the (KB) knowledgebase page of MS with its few KB(kilobytes) download of a free nmake was a godsend for the Perl people, who wanted to ease the life of Windows users.</p>
<p><b>Update:</b> make explicit KB = (ms) knowledge base and KB = K byte</p>
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