Installation on Microsoft Windows: There are three ways to create binaries of this package for Microsoft Windows: 1) Native binaries, built using the mingw tool chain. 2) Native binaries, built using the MS Visual C/C++ tool chain. 3) Binaries for the Cygwin environment. =============================================================================== 1) Native binaries, built using the mingw tool chain. I recommend to use the Cygwin environment as the development environment and mingw only as the target (runtime, deployment) environment. For this, you need to install * Cygwin (from https://cygwin.com/), * some packages available from the Cygwin package installer: make * the mingw cross-compilation tools and runtime package, available from the Cygwin package installer (setup-x86_64.exe): - for creating 32-bit binaries: packages mingw64-i686-gcc-core, mingw64-i686-gcc-g++, mingw64-i686-headers, mingw64-i686-runtime - for creating 64-bit binaries: packages mingw64-x86_64-gcc-core, mingw64-x86_64-gcc-g++, mingw64-x86_64-headers, mingw64-x86_64-runtime Building 32-bit binaries for mingw is achieved through the following preparation, configure, and build commands: PATH=/usr/local/mingw32/bin:/usr/i686-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw/bin:$PATH export PATH ./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/usr/local/mingw32 \ CC=i686-w64-mingw32-gcc \ CXX=i686-w64-mingw32-g++ \ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/mingw32/include -Wall" \ LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/mingw32/lib" make make check Building 64-bit binaries for mingw is achieved through the following preparation, configure, and build commands: PATH=/usr/local/mingw64/bin:/usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw/bin:$PATH export PATH ./configure --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/usr/local/mingw64 \ CC=x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc \ CXX=x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++ \ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/mingw64/include -Wall" \ LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/mingw64/lib" make make check Installation: make install =============================================================================== 2) 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 http://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 http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=automake.git;a=blob_plain;f=lib/ar-lib;hb=HEAD http://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="$HOME/msvc/ar-lib lib" \ RANLIB=":" make make check Installation: make install =============================================================================== 3) Binaries for the Cygwin environment. The generic instructions in the INSTALL file apply. But here are more specific ones. You need to install * Cygwin (from https://cygwin.com/), * some packages available from the Cygwin package installer: make * the Cygwin [cross-]compilation tools package, available from the Cygwin package installer (setup-x86_64.exe): - for creating 32-bit binaries: packages cygwin32-gcc-core, cygwin32-gcc-g++, cygwin32 - for creating 64-bit binaries: packages gcc-core, gcc-g++ Building 32-bit binaries for Cygwin is achieved through the following preparation, configure, and build commands: PATH=/usr/local/cygwin32/bin:/usr/i686-pc-cygwin/sys-root/usr/bin:$PATH export PATH ./configure --host=i686-pc-cygwin --prefix=/usr/local/cygwin32 \ CC=i686-pc-cygwin-gcc \ CXX=i686-pc-cygwin-g++ \ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/cygwin32/include -Wall" \ LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/cygwin32/lib" make make check Building 64-bit binaries for Cygwin is achieved through the following preparation, configure, and build commands: PATH=/usr/local/cygwin64/bin:$PATH export PATH ./configure --host=x86_64-pc-cygwin --prefix=/usr/local/cygwin64 \ CC=x86_64-pc-cygwin-gcc \ CXX=x86_64-pc-cygwin-g++ \ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/cygwin64/include -Wall" \ LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/cygwin64/lib" make make check Installation: make install ===============================================================================