In answer to your question about where my version of 'make' came from, I installed Dev-Cpp on my system which included 'make' 3.80. Then I used the package installation feature of Dev-Cpp to upgraded to 'make' 3.81, using the package found at http://www.devpaks.org.
With all the talk about this being an issue with the SHELL I checked my registry carefully and discovered the following key with value: "My Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun" This key/value was running a batch file hidden in the system. it contained startup parameters and values for CMD. After removing this key 'make' was no longer bothered by quote marks in Makefiles. 'cmd' provides the /D option to disable running the value found at this key. Although 'make' now works on my development machine I have not yet been unable to duplicate the error on another windows XP machine. It may take testing the different settings in the startup batch file AutoRun called. -Daniel _______________________________________________ Make-w32 mailing list Make-w32@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/make-w32