Does OpenSlide support BigTIFF Aperio files? Also, compiling from source?

[Zak Fallows]

Dear OpenSlide Users,

I have a few questions:

1. Does OpenSlide support BigTIFF Aperio .SVS files, with 64-bit 
offsets? The OpenSlide homepage says that version 3.2.2 (June 2010) 
added "untested BigTIFF support", but is that just for generic (flat) 
tiled TIFFs, or does that extend to TIFF-based pyramidal formats like 
Aperio?

2. In order to open a BigTIFF Aperio file with OpenSlide, do I need to 
install the an extra BigTIFF library, beyond the normal dependencies of 
OpenSlide? Do I need to install LibTIFF 4 Beta, instead of the latest 
stable release of LibTIFF 3? I have OpenSlide 3.2.4 up and running under 
Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7, but I am pretty sure I never installed a 
BigTIFF library on either. I installed on Windows 7 by just downloading 
"openslide-win32.zip" and putting the DLLs on my PATH, and I don't think 
the included "libtiff-3.dll" supports BigTIFF.

3. If I need a different version of LibTIFF for BigTIFFs, will I have to 
compile it from source on Windows 7? What is the easiest way to upgrade 
OpenSlide on Windows to read BigTIFFs?

4. I might like to try compiling OpenSlide and all the dependencies from 
source under Windows 7, how difficult will that be? I realize this 
question is much more open ended than the prior three. I have some 
experience compiling C libraries from source on Ubuntu, but no 
experience doing so on Windows.

Thank you,

Zak Fallows