after going back and forth a few times,
using "release" instead of "debug" in MSVC i can produce a build only of GEM
without an error.
i now have a.o. gem.dll.
what to do next, just copy & replace in the installed Pd?

(of course i tried already: "gem.dll couldn't load")

btw isn't the imegjpeg plugin also needed for working with .jpg files?

rolf