build-win.rst

windows build

The build currently expects MINGW64 environment, on a native windows host.

A cross-compiling procedure (at least for the application binaries) should be possible in the near future, using mxe. (There's already some support for it in gui/build.sh).

You should instal: make, wget, as well as a recent Qt6 version (for instance, with chocolatey: choco install make && choco install wget).

For installing Qt6 use the [aqt](https://github.com/miurahr/aqtinstall) tool to install a portable version of Qt.

It's recommended to use bash for windows for compatibility (the version that is distributed with git works well so far). In order to avoid makefiles, you are welcome to submit a port of the build scripts using powershell or cscript - see the build.wsf script in openvpn-build for inspiration.

For the installer, install QtIFW for windows (tested with version 3.2.2).

It is useful to source a file with all the needed environment variables:

cat ../build-env
export PATH="/c/Qt/Qt5/bin/":"/c/Qt/QtIFW-3.2.2/bin":$PATH
export WINCERTPASS=certificatepass
export VENDOR_PATH=providers
export PROVIDER=riseup

Assuming you have the vendor path in place and correctly configured, all you need to do is make installer: