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windows-requirements.md

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Requirements to build dotnet/runtime on Windows

These instructions will lead you through the requirements to build dotnet/runtime on Windows.

Environment

Here are the components you will need to install and setup to work with the repo.

Enable Long Paths

The runtime repository requires long paths to be enabled. Follow the instructions provided here to enable that feature.

If using Git for Windows you might need to also configure long paths there. Using an administrator terminal simply type:

git config --system core.longpaths true

Visual Studio

Install Visual Studio 2022. The Community edition is available free of charge. Visual Studio 2022 17.8 or later is required. Note that as we ramp up on a given release the libraries code may start using preview language features. While an older IDE may still succeed in building the projects, the IDE may report mismatched diagnostics in the Errors and Warnings window. Using the latest public preview of Visual Studio is required to ensure the IDE experience is well behaved in such scenarios.

Note that Visual Studio and the development tools described below are required, regardless of whether you plan to use the IDE or not. The installation process goes as follows:

  • It's recommended to use Workloads installation approach. The following are the minimum requirements:
    • .NET Desktop Development with all default components,
    • Desktop Development with C++ with all default components.
  • To build for Arm64, make sure that you have the right architecture-specific compilers installed. In the Individual components window, in the Compilers, build tools, and runtimes section:
    • For Arm64, check the box for MSVC v143* VS 2022 C++ ARM64 build tools (Latest).
  • To build the tests, you will need some additional components:
    • C++/CLI support for v143 build tools (Latest).

A .vsconfig file is included in the root of the dotnet/runtime repository that includes all components needed to build the dotnet/runtime repository. You can import .vsconfig in your Visual Studio installer to install all necessary components.

Build Tools

These steps are required only in case the tools have not been installed as Visual Studio Individual Components (described above).

CMake

  • Install CMake for Windows.
  • Add its location (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\CMake\bin) to the PATH environment variable. The installation script has a check box to do this, but you can do it yourself after the fact following the instructions at Adding to the Default PATH variable.

The dotnet/runtime repository requires using CMake 3.20 or newer.

NOTE: If you plan on using the -msbuild flag for building the repo, you will need version 3.21 at least. This is because the VS2022 generator doesn't exist in CMake until said version.

Ninja

Python

  • Install Python for Windows.
  • Add its location (e.g. C:\Python*\) to the PATH environment variable. The installation script has a check box to do this, but you can do it yourself after the fact following the instructions at Adding to the Default PATH variable.

The dotnet/runtime repository requires at least Python 3.7.4.

Git

  • Install Git for Windows.
  • Add its location (e.g. C:\Program Files\Git\cmd) to the PATH environment variable. The installation script has a check box to do this, but you can do it yourself after the fact following the instructions at Adding to the Default PATH variable.

The dotnet/runtime repository requires at least Git 2.22.0.

PowerShell

  • Ensure that powershell.exe is accessible via the PATH environment variable. Typically this is %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\ and its automatically set upon Windows installation.
  • Powershell version must be 3.0 or higher. Use $PSVersionTable.PSVersion to determine the engine version.

.NET SDK

While not strictly needed to build or test this repository, having the .NET SDK installed lets you browse solution files in this repository with Visual Studio and use the dotnet.exe command to run .NET applications in the 'normal' way.

We use this in the build testing with the installed SDK, and build testing with dev shipping packages instructions. The minimum required version of the SDK is specified in the global.json file. You can find the installers and binaries for latest development builds of .NET SDK in the installer repo.

Alternatively, to avoid modifying your machine state, you can use the repository's locally acquired SDK by passing in the solution to load via the -vs switch. For example:

.\build.cmd -vs System.Text.RegularExpressions

This will set the DOTNET_ROOT and PATH environment variables to point to the locally acquired SDK under runtime\.dotnet and will launch the Visual Studio instance that is registered for the sln extension.

Adding to the default PATH variable

The commands above need to be on your command lookup path. Some installers will automatically add them to the path as part of the installation, but if not, here is how you can do it.

You can also temporarily add a directory to the PATH environment variable with the command-prompt syntax set PATH=%PATH%;DIRECTORY_TO_ADD_TO_PATH. If you're working with Powershell, then the syntax would be $Env:PATH += ";DIRECTORY_TO_ADD_TO_PATH". However, this change will only last until the command windows close.

You can make your change to the PATH variable persistent by going to Control Panel -> System And Security -> System -> Advanced system settings -> Environment Variables, and select the Path variable under System Variables (if you want to change it for all users) or User Variables (if you only want to change it for the current user).

Simply edit the PATH variable's value and add the directory (with a semicolon separator).