**Note that installing all of the development prerequisites and libraries will require about 30 GB of free disk space. Please ensure this space is available on your `C:` drive before proceeding.**
This guide assumes you are on a 64-bit system. You might need to manually search out alternate download links should you desire to build Chatterino on a 32-bit system.
Download and install [Visual Studio 2019 Community](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/). In the installer, select "Desktop development with C++" and "Universal Windows Platform development".
Visual Studio versions map as follows: `14.2` in the filename corresponds to MSVC 2019, `14.1` to 2017, `14.0` to 2015. _Anything prior to Visual Studio 2015 is unsupported. Please upgrade should you have an older installation._
**Convenience link for Visual Studio 2019: [boost_1_76_0-msvc-14.2-64.exe](https://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost-binaries/1.76.0/boost_1_76_0-msvc-14.2-64.exe/download)**
6. Add `C:\local\bin` to your path folder ([Follow the guide here if you don't know how to do it](https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000549.htm#windows10))
**If the download links above do not work, try downloading similar 1.1.x & 1.0.x versions [here](https://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html). Note: Don't download the "light" installers, they do not have the required files.**
- Installing the latest **stable** Qt version is advised for new installations, but if you want to use your existing installation please ensure you are running **Qt 5.12 or later**.
4. Under the "Tools" tree element (at the bottom), ensure that `Qt Creator X.X.X` and `Debugging Tools for Windows` are selected. (they should be checked by default)
Compiling with Breakpad support enables crash reports that can be of use for developing/beta versions of Chatterino. If you have no interest in reporting crashes anyways, this optional dependency will probably be of no use to you.
1. Open up `lib/qBreakpad/handler/handler.pro`in Qt Creator
2. Build it in whichever mode you want to build Chatterino in (Debug/Profile/Release)
3. Copy the newly built `qBreakpad.lib` to the following directory: `lib/qBreakpad/build/handler` (You will have to manually create this directory)
2. You will be presented with a screen that is titled "Configure Project". In this screen, you should have at least one option present ready to be configured, like this:
Build results will be placed in a folder at the same level as the "chatterino2" project folder (e.g. if your sources are at `C:\Users\example\src\chatterino2`, then the build will be placed in an automatically generated folder under `C:\Users\example\src`, e.g. `C:\Users\example\src\build-chatterino-Desktop_Qt_5_15_2_MSVC2019_64bit-Release`.)
- Note that if you are building chatterino purely for usage, not for development, it is recommended that you click the "PC" icon above the play icon and select "Release" instead of "Debug".
- Output and error messages produced by the compiler can be seen under the "4 Compile Output" tab in Qt Creator.
If you build chatterino, the result directories will contain a `chatterino.exe` file in the `$OUTPUTDIR\release\` directory. This `.exe` file will not directly run on any given target system, because it will be lacking various Qt runtimes.
To produce a standalone package, you need to generate all required files using the tool `windeployqt`. This tool can be found in the `bin` directory of your Qt installation, e.g. at `C:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64\bin\windeployqt.exe`.
1. Navigate to your build output directory with Windows Explorer, e.g. `C:\Users\example\src\build-chatterino-Desktop_Qt_5_15_2_MSVC2019_64bit-Release`
You can now create a zip archive of all the contents in `releases` and distribute the program as is, without requiring any development tools to be present on the target system. (However, the vcredist package must be present, as usual - see the [README](README.md)).
