Installing OpenSSL for Windows 7

[cfanatic]

Hi all.

I am running Windows 7 64-bit, with MingW32. I am trying to install OSSL so that I can use the libcurl library to access my bank and email accounts, and have a bewildering range of packages to choose from: Shining Light Productions - Win32 OpenSSL . I need OSSL to generate self-signed certificates. I am new to OSSL and certificates.

Wikipedia says 1.0.1c is the latest version, so I download "Win32 OpenSSL v1.0.1c". Win32 because I think it would be more mature and stable than Win64. When I run it, a window pops up saying that it can't detect VC++ 2008 Redistributable(VC2008R), and that OSSL won't work properly. The control panel shows that VC++2008R is installed.

So I think that OSSL expects an older version of VC2008R. So from the same list of packages, I download "Visual C++ 2008 Redistributables". When I run it, a window pops up with the option to repair VC2008R(to it's original state) or Uninstall it.

What do I do? Will restoring VC200R to it's original state(from 2008/9) create problems for programs that require a later version? Who has OSSL installed and running on a Windows 7 64-bit machine? What packages did you install?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I've heard of something called GnuWin32, but it comes with a lot of crap that I don't need, and I am not sure if it has the latest version of OSSL. Don't know if it will also have problems with VC++2008R.

EDIT2: Looks like GnuWin32 contains an OSSL package from 2008: OpenSSL for Windows

[adeyblue]

You need any redist version that is equal or higher to the one requested in the manifests (here that's 9.0.21022.8). The magic of Side-by-Side assemblies (yes, there is some!) is that any app requesting a version before the latest one installed, loads the latest one instead of the version it requested.
So if you install the 30729.4974 version, like I have, then the OpenSSL installer might complain but it works fine.