the GCC headers and libraries don't have the proper definitions to get it to work

It's the same with the compilers provided by mingw.org (not the same vendor that provides the compilers used by Strawberry Perl).

Are either of these vendors aware of this deficiency ? (There are legal considerations involved in publicly providing headers for MS functions. I think they're supposed to be derived from documentation that MS has made public ... I'm not sure of the exact constraints.)

Cheers,
Rob