Just read up more about compiling pike on windows. Seems it's quite hard, even the basics. I wonder if this page is still current?

http://www.gotpike.org/PikeWiki/index.pike?page=PikeDevel/Pike%20on%20Window...

It's a bit out of date.

It is quite confusing, I think. What is best used nowadays? The MinGW approach had problems with dynamic modules. I don't know if that is still the case, but if it is, does this mean you cannot write your own modules and just use them? That would be a real problem for me.

Haven't tested that in modern times, but the cygwin approach has been used to build working Pikes for debugging in other places.

On the other hand, if the msvc approach still needs VC6.0 instead of a newer version, this will be a dead end too, eventually.

The MSVC approach relies on VC9 now a days, that's the one you get if you download the free Express edition from MS. That's the method I use. One virtualized Ubuntu for running the build process and a virtualized XP for the compiler.

And what about this rnctl pike script I'd need? I cannot find that anywhere in the source.

As Marcus said, it's in the separate pike-tools module now.

There was also some talk in the mailing list about using cygwin to compile pike, but if you do that, don't you need cygwin to run pike also? Doesn't seem like a good option if you want to distribute an exe.

You'll likely need the cygwin dll that you can distribute with your pike, but I agree that's less than ideal, and I haven't checked what license problems that includes. It's probably OK if you just want to do some testing though.