Linking assembly with ld in Windows

Question

I have this "Hello world!" program written in assembly (NASM syntax):

; hello.asm
global _start

extern GetStdHandle
extern WriteFile

section .text
_start:
    push dword -11
    call GetStdHandle
    sub esp, 4
    mov ebx, esp
    push dword 0
    push ebx
    push message_length
    push message
    push eax
    call WriteFile
    add esp, 4
    xor eax, eax
    ret

section .data
    message: db `Hello world!
`
    message_length equ $ - message

I tried linking the object file with MinGW's ld but I couldn't get it to work:

nasm -f win32 hello.asm -o hello.obj
ld -mi386pe hello.obj -o hello.exe -lkernel32

The output of ld is:

ld: cannot find -lkernel32

Trying to link the object file with GoLink results in a success:

nasm -f win32 hello.asm -o hello.obj
golink /entry _start /console hello.obj -o hello.exe kernel32.dll

The output of GoLink is:

GoLink.Exe Version 1.0.3.0  Copyright Jeremy Gordon 2002-2018   info@goprog.com
Output file: hello.exe
Format: Win32   Size: 2,048 bytes

And the program runs fine:

> hello
Hello world!

>

How do I link an object file using ld under Windows? Please note that I don't want to link to the CRT, since I'm not using it.

Here are my failed attempts, and their outputs:

> ld -mi386pe hello.obj -o hello.exe -lkernel32
ld: cannot find -lkernel32

> ld -mi386pe hello.obj -o hello.exe -LC:\Windows\System32 -lkernel32
ld: skipping incompatible C:\Windows\System32/kernel32.dll when searching for -lkernel32
ld: skipping incompatible C:\Windows\System32/kernel32.dll when searching for -lkernel32
ld: cannot find -lkernel32

> ld -mi386pe hello.obj -o hello.exe -LC:\Windows\SysWOW64 -lkernel32
ld: hello.obj:hello.asm:(.text+0x3): undefined reference to `GetStdHandle'
ld: hello.obj:hello.asm:(.text+0x18): undefined reference to `WriteFile'

Also, output if I decorate the names as _GetStdHandle@4 and _WriteFile@20:

> ld -mi386pe hello.obj -o hello.exe -LC:\Windows\SysWOW64 -lkernel32
ld: warning: resolving _GetStdHandle@4 by linking to _GetStdHandle
Use --enable-stdcall-fixup to disable these warnings
Use --disable-stdcall-fixup to disable these fixups
ld: warning: resolving _WriteFile@20 by linking to _WriteFile
> hello
Access is denied.
> rem This also gives a popup window which says "This app can't run on your PC"

> ld -mi386pe hello.obj -o hello.exe -LC:\Windows\SysWOW64 --disable-stdcall-fixup -lkernel32
ld: hello.obj:hello.asm:(.text+0x3): undefined reference to `GetStdHandle@4'
ld: hello.obj:hello.asm:(.text+0x18): undefined reference to `WriteFile@20'

> ld -mi386pe hello.obj -o hello.exe -LC:\Windows\SysWOW64 --enable-stdcall-fixup -lkernel32
> hello
Access is denied.

Also, output if I decorate the names as _GetStdHandle and _WriteFile:

> ld -mi386pe hello.obj -o hello.exe -LC:\Windows\SysWOW64 -lkernel32
> hello
Access is denied.
> rem It doesn't change if I add --enable-stdcall-fixup or --disable-stdcall-fixup

Platform details:

Windows 10 x64
nasm 2.14rc15
ld 2.32
gcc 9.2.0
golink 1.0.3.0

Linking assembly with ld in Windows

0 Answers