**Note that installing all of the development prerequisites and libraries will require about 40 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 2022 Community](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/). In the installer, select "Desktop development with C++" and "Universal Windows Platform development".
1. Visit the [Qt Open Source Page](https://www.qt.io/download-open-source).
2. Scroll down to the bottom
3. Then select "Download the Qt Online Installer"
Notes:
- 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**.
#### When prompted which components to install:
1. Unfold the tree element that says "Qt"
2. Unfold the top most tree element (latest stable Qt version, e.g. `Qt 5.15.2`)
3. Under this version, select the following entries:
-`MSVC 2019 64-bit` (or alternative version if you are using that)
-`Qt WebEngine` (optional)
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)
5. Continue through the installer and let the installer finish installing Qt.
Note: This installation will take about 2 GB of disk space.
Once Qt is done installing, make sure you add its bin directory to your `PATH` (e.g. `C:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64\bin`)
### Advanced dependencies
These dependencies are only required if you are not using a package manager
Visual Studio versions map as follows: `14.3` in the filename corresponds to MSVC 2022,`14.2` to 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 2022: [boost_1_79_0-msvc-14.3-64.exe](https://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost-binaries/1.79.0/boost_1_79_0-msvc-14.3-64.exe/download)**
1. Download OpenSSL for windows, version `1.1.1s`: **[Download](https://web.archive.org/web/20221101204129/https://slproweb.com/download/Win64OpenSSL-1_1_1s.exe)**
Open up your terminal with the Visual Studio environment variables (e.g. `x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022`), cd to the cloned c2 directory and run the following commands:
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)).
Make sure you installed `C++ AddressSanitizer` in your VisualStudio installation like described in the [Microsoft Docs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/sanitizers/asan#install-the-addresssanitizer).
To build Chatterino with AddressSanitizer on MSVC, you need to add `-DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=/fsanitize=address` to your CMake options.
When you start Chatterino, and it's complaining about `clang_rt.asan_dbg_dynamic-x86_64.dll` missing,
copy the file found in `<VisualStudio-installation-path>\VC\Tools\MSVC\<version>\bin\Hostx64\x64\clang_rt.asan_dbg_dynamic-x86_64.dll` to the `Chatterino` folder inside your `build` folder.
To learn more about AddressSanitizer and MSVC, visit the [Microsoft Docs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/sanitizers/asan).
