NMAKE32 is fully compatible with previous versions of NMAKE with the following exceptions:

• When the -n option is specified, only commands prefixed with & or $(MAKE) are executed.

• Parentheses must be used to group expressions in directives that contain multiple expressions.

• Control characters used in filenames and pathnames in a makefile must be preceded by a caret (^) character so that they are not evaluated by NMAKE32. This is especially important in pathnames where an ending backslash character could erroneously be treated as the line concatenation operation by NMAKE32 instead of the literal backslash character intended by the makefile writer.

• A pseudo-target without a dependent must contain a command block.