I'm new so this might be something stupid... but any program i attempt to build that includes windows.inc i get lots of syntax errors for structures, and ones saying structure improperly initialized. anyone know what i can do?
At what point in your source file are you including windows.inc?
Hmm iirc, I had the same problem with masm8 (ml.exe, not the package), found the structures and made them masm8-compatible. But the version of masm8 I had was very buggy.
The symptoms you describe could be caused by not including this line in the source above the point where windows.inc is included:
option casemap :none ; case sensitive
The original Microsoft include files depend on case sensitivity. To pick one example from windows.inc to illustrate the problem:
LUID STRUCT
LowPart DWORD ?
HighPart DWORD ?
LUID ENDS
...
LUID_AND_ATTRIBUTES STRUCT
Luid LUID <>
Attributes dd ?
LUID_AND_ATTRIBUTES ENDS
Here the problem is that without case sensitivity "Luid" = "LUID".