I assume -j is implemented for NT, but if you're using MSVC's compiler you cannot use it. The issue is that to save space and time cl creates a ".pdb" file which is a database of debugging information for your program, and only one compile process at a time can update this file; the second simultaneous compile will fail (just like the irritating feature that you can't compile while also running the debugger).

With g++ you will not have this problem, but g++ is about twice as slow as MSVC at at compile time, so there is zero gain on a dual processor machine. (Although g++ accepts a more complete subset of ANSI C++ than MSVC, particularly in regard to templates.)

alex