Generally speaking Windows will look for DLL's in the EXE's directory or on the PATH environment variable. This means that frameworks do not work as-is on Windows, you need to shuffle files around to execute a program which uses frameworks.
NSBundle implements a couple strategies to deal with this but the simplest is to put the frameworks in the executable's directory like so:
Windows will find the DLL's and the NSBundle code will look for the .framework/ directories for resources
See the retargetBundle page for information on a tool which will do this automatically for you during the build process.The InstallCDT script installs a tool called 'retargetBundle' for quickly copying the essential runtime pieces of a framework into a .app directory during an Xcode build. The intent is that it is used in a scripted phase of your target, such as.:
This simplifies the problem of post-processing an executable so that the Foundation/AppKit/other framework dll's and resources are in the right location before execution.
retargetBundle Synopsis: Quickly copies the essential parts of a .framework in the Mac OS X layout to a layout more suitable for Windows or Unix using the Cocotron runtime. Options: -FAdds a directory to the beginning of the search path. The initial search path is the value of the environment variable FRAMEWORK_SEARCH_PATHS if present, typically set by Xcode. The search path can not be empty. -framework Name of framework to copy, e.g. "Foundation". The path of the framework is immediately resolved using the current search path. Subsequent changes to the search path will not affect the resolved path of this framework. At least one framework must be specified. -destination Directory to place the resulting files. If no directory is specified, the current directory is used. Discussion: While the default OS X framework organization is perfectly suitable as a compile/link time solution it poses cumbersome execution time implications on Windows and Unix. The OS X layout would require altering the dynamic link path or placing frameworks at absolute paths, which is inconvenient for developers and users. The convention with the Cocotron runtime is locate frameworks alongside the executables that need them, typically inside the .app wrapper, or in the same directory as a command line tool. Both Windows and Unix have functionality which makes this easy to accomplish provided the framework is reorganized. The Windows dynamic linker will automatically recognize dll's located in the same directory as the .exe and most Unix systems allow similar behavior to be configured using the -rpath linking option and $ORIGIN. retargetBundle will copy a framework's dynamic library to the destination directory and copy the .framework directory and resources to the destination directory. Symbolic links, headers and link libraries are not copied. retargetBundle is intended to be used as the final build stage in an Xcode project, copying the essential framework pieces into a .app wrapper for immediate execution. The copy is done efficiently, only copying changed files. retargetBundle will not delete files, if the framework's structure has changed, you should clean your target and rebuild.