First off, if this is the wrong place (its not strictly speaking about programming, its more about installations etc..) mods, feel free to move!

I am undertaking a project (final year engineering) that requires me to use the TIMIT speech database. The database comes with SPHERE (SPeech HEader REsources) utilities for handling the wave files. (The wave files have headers on them that must be removed for them to work).
The problem is that the SPHERE utility programs (a series of C++ programs) dont seem to compile. They turn up a range of compilation errors. Now the thing is that these files should be as safe as houses (or safe enough, ie. not 63 compilation errors!).
The documentation that came with the utilities suggest that an installation may be required. The way it suggests this is by saying how to do it when using Linux (which I am not using, Im using windows). Then it says that if your not using Linux a manual installation may be required! WTF!?
So I'm not really sure what to do here. I've google loads and I can never find any specifics regarding installation. Well, nothing more than what I already have.
I guess that I'm looking for people that may have experience with the TIMIT database and how to set it up using the SPHERE utilities.
I'm thinking that this may be a long shot but if anyone has any suggestions I would like to hear them...
Cheers,
Gob.