GDAL on Windows
Download latest sources
http://download.osgeo.org/gdal/gdal173.zip
Unpack someplace convenient. D:/Brian/gdal-1.7.3/
Open in Visual Studio and build
I had to put the VS2010 disc in and install C++ so that I could open the vcxproj files. When I originally installed, I only loaded up C#.
Then I can simply doubleclick on makegdal10.sln
Change installation destination. By default it is C:\warmerda\bld I change it to C:\GDAL by editing GDAL_HOME in "Make Files\nmake.opt"
I set this: MSVC_VER=1600
I am currently using ArcGIS 9.3.1, which installed Python 2.5 for me, so I want to build modules for that. So I edit PYDIR in nmake.opt to set it to C:\Python25
I am building on a 64 bit machine but ArcGIS is only 32-bit. Not sure what to do, so for now I leave WIN64 alone. (Commented out)
I will need to edit this further to support other formats, MrSid for instance.
Finally, I set the thing in Release mode and say Build.
Build ArcObjects plugin
This lets me access ESRI format data objects like "file geodatabases".
Build Python modules
I think I need swig.exe for this.