# MSVC builds

For up-do-date instructions for your version of openvpn also check the file `README.cmake.md` in the openvpn source code.

The following tools are expected to be present on the system, you
can install them with a package manager of your choice (e.g.
chocolatey, winget) or manually:

* CMake (>= 3.21)
* Git
* Python (3.x), plus the Python module `docutils`
* Visual Studion 17 (2022), C/C++ Enviroment

For example, to prepare the required tools with chocolatey, you
can use the following commands (Powershell):

```
# Installing Chocolatey
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
& choco.exe install -y git --params "/GitAndUnixToolsOnPath"
& choco.exe install -y python
& python.exe -m ensurepip
& python.exe -m pip install --upgrade pip
& python.exe -m pip install docutils
& choco.exe install -y cmake --installargs 'ADD_CMAKE_TO_PATH=System'
& choco.exe install -y "visualstudio2022buildtools"
& choco.exe install -y "visualstudio2022-workload-vctools" --params "--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.UWP.VC.ARM64 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.ARM64 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.ATL.Spectre --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.ATLMFC.Spectre --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.ATL.ARM64.Spectre --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.MFC.ARM64.Spectre --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.ARM64.Spectre --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.x86.x64.Spectre --quiet"
& choco.exe install -y windows-sdk-10-version-2004-windbg
```

One or more restarts of Powershell might be required to pick up new additions
to `PATH` between steps. A Windows restart is probably required after
installing Visual Studio before being able to use it.
You can find the exact commands we use to set up the community build machines
at https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn-buildbot/blob/master/jenkins/windows-server/msibuild.pkr.hcl

To do a default build, assuming you are in a MSVC 17 2022 environment:

```
mkdir C:\OpenVPN
cd C:\OpenVPN
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
git clone https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn.git
set VCPKG_ROOT=C:\OpenVPN\vcpkg
cd openvpn
cmake --preset win-amd64-release
cmake --build --preset win-amd64-release
ctest --preset win-amd64-release
```

When using the presets, the build directory is
`out/build/<preset-name>/`, you can find the output files there.
No install support is provided directly in OpenVPN build, take a look
at https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn-build.git instead.