Native binaries, built using the MS Visual C/C++ tool chain.
Note that binaries created with MSVC have a distribution constraint: They
depend on a closed-source library ('msvcr90.dll' for MSVC 9.0,
'vcruntime140.dll' for MSVC 14.0, and so on) which is not normally part of
a Windows installation.
You cannot distribute 'vcruntime*.dll' with the binaries - this would be a
violation of the GPL and of the Microsoft EULA.
You can distribute the binaries without including 'vcruntime*.dll'. Users
who don't have this library on their system will require to pull some files
(api-ms-win*.dll) through the Windows Update mechanism, see
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226 .
This recipe requires MS Visual C/C++ 9.0 or newer.
You don't need the Visual Studio IDE, just the C/C++ tool chain.
As of 2016, you can install the MS Visual C/C++ 14.0 tool chain from
https://landinghub.visualstudio.com/visual-cpp-build-tools (it's the file
visualcppbuildtools_full.exe).
This recipe requires also a Cygwin environment (with 'bash', the common POSIX
commands, and 'make') as a build environment. Building with 'nmake' is not
supported.
For this, you need to install
* Cygwin (from https://cygwin.com/),
* some packages available from the Cygwin package installer:
make
You also need the scripts 'ar-lib' and 'compile' from
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=automake.git;a=blob_plain;f=lib/ar-lib;hb=HEAD
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=automake.git;a=blob_plain;f=lib/compile;hb=HEAD
respectively.
They may also be included in this package, in directory 'build-aux/'.
Save them; the instructions below assume that you stored them in $HOME/msvc/.
Make them executable:
chmod a+x ar-lib compile
Start a bash (from Cygwin).
Make sure that the MSVC tools ("cl" etc.) are found in PATH and the
environment variables INCLUDE and LIB are set appropriately.
In a typical MSVC 9.0 installation, it can be achieved by running
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat
In a typical MSVC 14.0 installation on Windows 10, it can be achieved
- for creating 32-bit binaries: through the following bash commands:
# Set environment variables for using MSVC 14,
# for creating native 32-bit Windows executables.
# Windows C library headers and libraries.
WindowsCrtIncludeDir='C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.10240.0\ucrt'
WindowsCrtLibDir='C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Lib\10.0.10240.0\ucrt\'
INCLUDE="${WindowsCrtIncludeDir};$INCLUDE"
LIB="${WindowsCrtLibDir}x86;$LIB"
# Windows API headers and libraries.
WindowsSdkIncludeDir='C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Include\'
WindowsSdkLibDir='C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Lib\winv6.3\um\'
INCLUDE="${WindowsSdkIncludeDir}um;${WindowsSdkIncludeDir}shared;$INCLUDE"
LIB="${WindowsSdkLibDir}x86;$LIB"
# Visual C++ tools, headers and libraries.
VSINSTALLDIR='C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0'
VCINSTALLDIR="${VSINSTALLDIR}"'\VC'
PATH=`cygpath -u "${VCINSTALLDIR}"`/bin:"$PATH"
INCLUDE="${VCINSTALLDIR}"'\include;'"${INCLUDE}"
LIB="${VCINSTALLDIR}"'\lib;'"${LIB}"
export INCLUDE LIB
- for creating 64-bit binaries: through the following bash commands:
# Set environment variables for using MSVC 14,
# for creating native 64-bit Windows executables.
# Windows C library headers and libraries.
WindowsCrtIncludeDir='C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Include\10.0.10240.0\ucrt'
WindowsCrtLibDir='C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Lib\10.0.10240.0\ucrt\'
INCLUDE="${WindowsCrtIncludeDir};$INCLUDE"
LIB="${WindowsCrtLibDir}x64;$LIB"
# Windows API headers and libraries.
WindowsSdkIncludeDir='C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Include\'
WindowsSdkLibDir='C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Lib\winv6.3\um\'
INCLUDE="${WindowsSdkIncludeDir}um;${WindowsSdkIncludeDir}shared;$INCLUDE"
LIB="${WindowsSdkLibDir}x64;$LIB"
# Visual C++ tools, headers and libraries.
VSINSTALLDIR='C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0'
VCINSTALLDIR="${VSINSTALLDIR}"'\VC'
PATH=`cygpath -u "${VCINSTALLDIR}"`/bin/amd64:"$PATH"
INCLUDE="${VCINSTALLDIR}"'\include;'"${INCLUDE}"
LIB="${VCINSTALLDIR}"'\lib\amd64;'"${LIB}"
export INCLUDE LIB
Building 32-bit binaries with MSVC is achieved through the following
preparation, configure, and build commands:
PATH=/usr/local/msvc32/bin:$PATH
export PATH
win32_target=_WIN32_WINNT_WINXP # for MSVC 9.0
win32_target=_WIN32_WINNT_VISTA # possibly for MSVC >= 10.0
win32_target=_WIN32_WINNT_WIN7 # possibly for MSVC >= 10.0
win32_target=_WIN32_WINNT_WIN8 # possibly for MSVC >= 10.0
./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/usr/local/msvc32 \
CC="$HOME/msvc/compile cl -nologo" \
CFLAGS="-MD" \
CXX="$HOME/msvc/compile cl -nologo" \
CXXFLAGS="-MD" \
CPPFLAGS="-D_WIN32_WINNT=$win32_target -I/usr/local/msvc32/include" \
LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/msvc32/lib" \
LD="link" \
NM="dumpbin -symbols" \
STRIP=":" \
AR="$HOME/msvc/ar-lib lib" \
RANLIB=":"
make
make check
Building 64-bit binaries with MSVC is achieved through the following
preparation, configure, and build commands:
PATH=/usr/local/msvc64/bin:$PATH
export PATH
win32_target=_WIN32_WINNT_WINXP # for MSVC 9.0
win32_target=_WIN32_WINNT_VISTA # possibly for MSVC >= 10.0
win32_target=_WIN32_WINNT_WIN7 # possibly for MSVC >= 10.0
win32_target=_WIN32_WINNT_WIN8 # possibly for MSVC >= 10.0
./configure --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/usr/local/msvc64 \
CC="$HOME/msvc/compile cl -nologo" \
CFLAGS="-MD" \
CXX="$HOME/msvc/compile cl -nologo" \
CXXFLAGS="-MD" \
CPPFLAGS="-D_WIN32_WINNT=$win32_target -I/usr/local/msvc64/include" \
LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/msvc64/lib" \
LD="link" \
NM="dumpbin -symbols" \
STRIP=":" \
AR="$HOME/msvc/ar-lib lib" \
RANLIB=":"
make
make check
Installation:
make install