minetest/doc/compiling/windows.md

Compiling on Windows using MSVC

Requirements

• Visual Studio 2015 or newer
• CMake
• vcpkg
• Git

Compiling and installing the dependencies

It is highly recommended to use vcpkg as package manager.

After you successfully built vcpkg you can easily install the required libraries:

vcpkg install zlib zstd curl[winssl] openal-soft libvorbis libogg libjpeg-turbo sqlite3 freetype luajit gmp jsoncpp gettext[tools] sdl2 --triplet x64-windows

• curl is optional, but required to read the serverlist, curl[winssl] is required to use the content store.
• openal-soft, libvorbis and libogg are optional, but required to use sound.
• luajit is optional, it replaces the integrated Lua interpreter with a faster just-in-time interpreter.
• gmp and jsoncpp are optional, otherwise the bundled versions will be compiled
• gettext is optional, but required to use translations.

There are other optional libraries, but they are not tested if they can build and link correctly.

Use --triplet to specify the target triplet, e.g. x64-windows or x86-windows.

Compile Minetest

a) Using the vcpkg toolchain and CMake GUI

1. Start up the CMake GUI
2. Select Browse Source... and select DIR/minetest
3. Select Browse Build... and select DIR/minetest-build
4. Select Configure
5. Choose the right visual Studio version and target platform. It has to match the version of the installed dependencies
6. Choose Specify toolchain file for cross-compiling
7. Click Next
8. Select the vcpkg toolchain file e.g. D:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake
9. Click Finish
10. Wait until cmake have generated the cash file
11. If there are any errors, solve them and hit Configure
12. Click Generate
13. Click Open Project
14. Compile Minetest inside Visual studio.

b) Using the vcpkg toolchain and the commandline

Run the following script in PowerShell:

cmake . -G"Visual Studio 16 2019" -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=D:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_CURSES=OFF
cmake --build . --config Release

Make sure that the right compiler is selected and the path to the vcpkg toolchain is correct.

Windows Installer using WiX Toolset

Requirements:

• Visual Studio 2017
• WiX Toolset

In the Visual Studio 2017 Installer select Optional Features -> WiX Toolset.

Build the binaries as described above, but make sure you unselect RUN_IN_PLACE.

Open the generated project file with Visual Studio. Right-click Package and choose Generate. It may take some minutes to generate the installer.