Windows builds can be made in more than one way and with more than one tool. This guide will show how to do it using Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 (MSVC compiler) and MSYS2 (MinGW compiler).
3. Git or git GUI, for example, SourceTree [download link](http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/download)
4. CMake [download link](https://cmake.org/download/). During install after accepting license agreement make sure to check "Add CMake to the system PATH for all users". You can also install CMake from the Visual Studio Installer or from a package manager like [WinGet](https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli).
5. Optional:
- To create installer: [Inno Setup](https://jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php)
- To speed up recompilation: [CCache](https://github.com/ccache/ccache/releases)
We use Conan package manager to build/consume dependencies, find detailed usage instructions [here](./Conan.md). Note that the link points to the state of the current branch, for the latest release check the same document in the [master branch](https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi/blob/master/docs/developers/Conan.md).
*Note*: we recommend using CMD (`cmd.exe`) for the next steps. If you absolutely want to use Powershell, then run `conan install` twice appending `-c tools.env.virtualenv:powershell=powershell.exe` on the second run.
3. Now you need to run a script* from the Conan directory that you passed to `conan install` (the one that you passed in `--output-folder` parameter). For example, if you passed `conan-msvc`, then the script will be in `source\conan-msvc`.
- for CMD: `source\conan-msvc\conanrun.bat`
- for Powershell: `source\conan-msvc\conanrun.ps1`. If it gives an error, also run `Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted`
\* This script sets up `PATH` required for Qt tools (`moc`, `uic` etc.) that run during CMake configure and build steps. Those tools depend on `zlib.dll` that was built with Conan, therefore its directory must be in `PATH`.
You must launch Visual Studio in a modified `PATH` environment, see `*` in the previous subsection. You can launch it right from the current shell by pasting path to `devenv.exe` (Visual Studio executable, e.g. `"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"`). To launch it later with correct environment, you can create batch script (a file with `bat` extension) which you can double-click, here's an example (use your own path on the first line):
1. Open `%VCMI_DIR%/build/VCMI.sln` in Visual Studio
2. Select `RelWithDebInfo` build type in the combobox
3. If you want to use ccache:
- Select `Manage Configurations...` in the combobox
- Specify the following CMake variable: `ENABLE_CCACHE=ON`
- See the [Visual Studio documentation](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/customize-cmake-settings?view=msvc-170#cmake-variables-and-cache) for details
4. Right click on `BUILD_ALL` project. This `BUILD_ALL` project should be in `CMakePredefinedTargets` tree in Solution Explorer. You can also build individual targets if you want.
5. VCMI will be built in `%VCMI_DIR%/build/bin/<config>` folder where `<config>` is e.g. `RelWithDebInfo`. Use `bat` files to launch executables, e.g. `VCMI_launcher.bat`.
**NOTE:** This will link Qt5 statically to `VCMI_launcher.exe` and `VCMI_Mapeditor.exe`. See [PR #3421](https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi/pull/3421) for some background.
Vcpkg might be very unstable due to limited popularity and fact of using bleeding edge packages (such as most recent Boost). Using latest version of dependencies could also expose both problems in VCMI code or library interface changes that developers not checked yet. So if you're built Vcpkg yourself and can't get it working please try to use binary package.
Pre-built version we provide is always manually tested with all supported versions of MSVC for both Release and Debug builds and all known quirks are listed below.
* Installed Heroes III from disk or using GOG installer
* Copied `Data`, `Maps` and `Mp3` folders from Heroes III to: `%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\vcmi\`
### VCMI won't run since some library is missing
**If you open solution using vcmi.sln** Try to build INSTALL target and see if its output works as expected. Copy missing libraries or even all libraries from there to your build directory. Or run cpack and use produced installer and see if you can get libs from there. cpack -V will give more info. If cpack complains that it can not find dumpbin try Visual Studio Command Prompt (special version of cmd provided with Visual Studio with additional PATH) or modify PATH to have this tool available. Another alternative if you use prebuilt vcpkg package is to download latest msvc build, install it and copy missing/all libraries from there.
Debug builds with MSVC are generally extremely slow since it's not just VCMI binaries are built as debug, but every single dependency too and this usually means no optimizations at all. Debug information that available for release builds is often sufficient so just avoid full debug builds unless absolutely necessary. Instead use RelWithDebInfo configuration, optionally with Optimization Disabled (/Od) to avoid variables being optimized away. Also Debug configuration might have some compilation issues because it is not checked via CI for now.
VCPKG generated projects quite often have both debug and regular libs available to linker so it can select wrong lib. For stable RelWithDebInfo build you may try to remove debug folder from VCPKG/installed/x64-windows. Same is done on CI. Also it reduces package size at least twice.
For the list of the packages used you can also consult [vcmi-deps-windows readme](https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi-deps-windows) in case this article gets outdated a bit.
### CMake integration
When executing `cmake` configure step, pass `--toolchain %VCMI_DIR%/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake`
