and even the mingw ld apparently sets its search_dirs without drive letters:
that shouldn't be the problem, though, as the failing part of ./configure was an indirect call via gcc, which seems to set the library prefixes correctly, when calling collect2 (see >>>>> below). it was just that the error message looked exactly right. Monique, perhaps you could send the output from the little test below, on your system, to compare (win/xp here)? claus $ pwd /cygdrive/d/tmp $ cat t.c int main() { exit(0); } $ c:/MinGW/bin/gcc --verbose t.c Reading specs from c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/specs Configured with: ../gcc/configure --with-gcc --with-gnu-ld --with-gnu-as --host=mingw32 --target=min gw32 --prefix=/mingw --enable-threads --disable-nls --enable-languages=c,c++,f77,ada,objc,java --dis able-win32-registry --disable-shared --enable-sjlj-exceptions --enable-libgcj --disable-java-awt --w ithout-x --enable-java-gc=boehm --disable-libgcj-debug --enable-interpreter --enable-hash-synchroniz ation --enable-libstdcxx-debug Thread model: win32 gcc version 3.4.2 (mingw-special) c:/MinGW/bin/../libexec/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/cc1.exe -quiet -v -iprefix c:\MinGW\bin\../lib/gcc/mingw3 2/3.4.2/ t.c -quiet -dumpbase t.c -auxbase t -version -o C:\DOCUME~1\cr3\LOCALS~1\Temp/ccE5aaaa.s ignoring nonexistent directory "c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/../../../../mingw32/include" ignoring nonexistent directory "/mingw/include" ignoring nonexistent directory "/mingw/include" ignoring nonexistent directory "/mingw/lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/include" ignoring nonexistent directory "/mingw/mingw32/include" ignoring nonexistent directory "/mingw/include" #include "..." search starts here: #include <...> search starts here: c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/../../../../include c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/include End of search list. GNU C version 3.4.2 (mingw-special) (mingw32) compiled by GNU C version 3.4.2 (mingw-special). GGC heuristics: --param ggc-min-expand=99 --param ggc-min-heapsize=130830 c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/../../../../mingw32/bin/as.exe -o C:\DOCUME~1\cr3\LOCALS~1\Temp/cc80baaa.o C:\DOCUME~1\cr3\LOCALS~1\Temp/ccE5aaaa.s c:/MinGW/bin/../libexec/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/collect2.exe -Bdynamic
c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/../../../crt2.o c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/crtbegin.o
-Lc:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2 -Lc:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc -Lc:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/../../../../mingw32/lib -Lc:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/../../.. C:\DOCUME~1\cr3\LOCALS~1\Temp/cc80baaa.o -lmingw32 -lgcc -lmoldname -lmingwex -lmsvcrt -luser32 -lkernel32 -ladvapi32 -lshell32 -lmingw32 -lgcc -lmoldname -lmingwex -lmsvcrt c:/MinGW/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.2/crtend.o