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From http://developers.videolan.org/vlc/vlc/INSTALL.win32

 $Id: INSTALL.win32 15707 2006-05-22 09:42:08Z xtophe $
 INSTALL file for the Windows9x/Me/NT4/2k/XP version of the VLC media player

==Before you start==

One common desire that leads people to want to rebuild VLC is to "rebuild a debug version" or "add printf()s", but this is not strictly necessary, as VLC includes a debug logging feature by default.  If you are using a binary release (or have already built VLC), just run <CODE>'vlc.exe'</CODE> and select "Messages..." from the "View" menu.

You can also run VLC from the Windows command-line interpreter, <CODE>cmd.exe</CODE> (a.k.a. "DOS window"), in which case you'll be able to use the command-line arguments. You can obtain a list of these command line arguments by typing <CODE>'vlc --help'</CODE> or <CODE>'vlc --help --advanced'</CODE>.

To store a debug log of the current VLC session, you can use <CODE>'vlc -vvv --extraintf=logger'</CODE>. You will end-up with a <CODE>vlc-log.txt</CODE> file in your current directory.

==Building VLC from source==

If you want to build VLC from source, you have several choices:

{| class="wikitable"
 ! Method
 ! Documentation
 ! Notes
|-
| Cross-compile with mingw32 on GNU/Linux
| None
| '''Preferred''' cross-compilation method
|-
| Native-compile with [http://www.cygwin.com Cygwin]
| [[Win32CompileCygwin]]
| '''Preferred''' native compilation method
|-
| Native-compile Nightlies (GIT) with [http://www.cygwin.com Cygwin]
| [[Win32CompileCygwinNew]]
| '''Working''' native compilation method for Nightly builds (GIT).
|-
| Native-compile with [http://www.mingw.org MSYS+MINGW]
| [[Win32CompileMSYS]]
| MSYS is a minimal build environment to compile Unixish projects under Microsoft Windows. It provides all the commonly-required Unix tools (like sh, gmake, and so forth). Please note that the gettext utilities are not included in the default MSYS/MINGW packages so you won't be able to build VLC with i18n support.
|-
| Native-compile with Microsoft Visual C++
| None
|
'''Not advised.''' <P>
Even though VLC includes some MSVC project files, this method is advised only if you just want to experiment/play with some basic functionality in VLC. VLC depends on a lot of third-party libraries and building them in MSVC is inconvenient (and in some cases, impossible). <BR> 
If you want to run VLC under the MSVC debugger, use <CODE>--fast-mutex --win9x-cv-method=1</CODE> because the debugger usually loses signals sent by PulseEvent().
|}

==Obtaining the build tools==

Each build method requires its own toolchain:

{| class="wikitable"
 ! Method
 ! Notes
|-
| Cross-compile with mingw32 on GNU/Linux
|
*Debian/Ubuntu users can <CODE>apt-get install mingw32 mingw32-binutils</CODE>
*Gentoo users can <CODE>emerge xmingw-gcc xmingw-binutils</CODE>
*Other systems may attempt http://www.mingw.org/mingwfaq.shtml#faq-cross
|-
| Native-compile with [http://www.cygwin.com Cygwin]
| Install Cygwin, adding the optional <CODE>gcc-g++</CODE>, <CODE>gcc-mingw</CODE>, <CODE>mingw-runtime</CODE> and <CODE>win32-api</CODE> packages from the <CODE>Devel</CODE> category.
|-
| Native-compile with [http://www.mingw.org MSYS+MINGW]
| Download and install the latest MSYS, MSYS-DTK, and MINGW from http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml. Begin with the MSYS auto-installer, then extract MINGW into <CODE>C:\MSYS\1.0\MINGW</CODE>. You also have to remember to remove the <CODE>make</CODE> utility included with MINGW as it conflicts with the one from MSYS (just rename or remove <CODE>C:\MSYS\1.0\MINGW\BIN\MAKE.EXE</CODE>).
|}

==Saving time by using pre-built libraries==

VLC requires other open source projects to provide some features (like AC3 audio decoding and MPEG-4 video decoding).  A complete list of required libraries from these projects can be found at http://developers.videolan.org/vlc/.  Depending on your needs, you must either build your own versions of these libraries or use VLC's convenient pre-built versions.

If you feel you must build these libraries from source, the blessed source code may be found at http://download.videolan.org/pub/testing/contrib/.  An automated way of building the contrib libraries is provided in extra/contrib. It will download, configure, and build the libraries. See the extras/contrib/README for more info.

If you want to save yourself time and energy by using the pre-built versions of these libraries, you may download them from ftp://ftp.videolan.org/pub/vlc/'''version'''/win32/contrib-'''yyyymmdd'''-win32-'''version'''-bin-gcc-'''gccversion'''-only.tar.bz2 . The pre-built versions will ''only work with MINGW or Cygwin''.  Note that the version you download must match that of the MINGW compiler, <CODE>i586-mingw32msvc-gcc</CODE>, which you can verify by typing <CODE>'i586-mingw32msvc-gcc --ver'</CODE>.

There are two installation strategies:

{| class="wikitable"
 ! Location
 ! Command
 ! Advantages
 ! Disadvantages
|-
| Install the pre-built libraries into the Cygwin standard directories (/usr/win32/*)
| <CODE>tar jxf contrib-20061122-win32-bin-gcc-3.4.5-only.tar.bz2 -C /</CODE> (Note the <CODE>"-C /"</CODE>!)
|
*Shorter initial setup time
|
*May conflict with other headers/libraries in the standard directories
*Difficult to get rid of if you want to free up space or to upgrade to the next version of the pre-built libraries (Installing over the top of older versions is highly discouraged!)
|-
| Install the pre-built libraries into a project-specific directory (e.g., <CODE>D:\VLC</CODE>)
| <CODE>tar jxf contrib-20061122-win32-bin-gcc-3.4.5-only.tar.bz2 -C /cygdrive/d/VLC</CODE>
|
*No conflicts with other projects built under Cygwin
*Easy to get rid of if you want to free up space or to upgrade to the next version of the pre-built libraries
*For multi-person projects, easy to put under revision control to ensure all project members are using the correct pre-built versions
|
*Requires that you set <CODE>CPPFLAGS</CODE>, <CODE>LDFLAGS</CODE> appropriately when building
*Requires that you modify hard-coded paths in the pre-built libraries (see below)
|}

If installing into a project-specific directory, you must modify some hard-coded paths in the pre-build libraries as follows:
<PRE>
CONTRIBS=/cygdrive/d/VLC
for file in $CONTRIBS/bin/*-config $CONTRIBS/lib/*.la ; do
	perl -i.bak -p -e 's|/usr/win32|$ENV{"CONTRIBS"}|g' $file
done
</PRE>

==Configuring the build==

Once you've got all the files you need in place, you need to configure the build with the <CODE>configure</CODE> script.  In the following examples, assume that the third-party libraries are installed in <CODE>$CONTRIBS</CODE>.  If installed in the Cygwin standard directories, use <CODE>export CONTRIBS=/usr/win32</CODE>. Otherwise use <CODE>export CONTRIBS=/cygdrive/d/VLC</CODE>.

If you are cross-compiling under GNU/Linux, you can use something along these lines:

  ./bootstrap && \
  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$CONTRIBS/lib/pkgconfig \
  CPPFLAGS="-I$CONTRIBS/include -I$CONTRIBS/include/ebml" CXXCPP=i586-mingw32msvc-cpp \
  LDFLAGS=-L$CONTRIBS/lib \
  CC=i586-mingw32msvc-gcc CXX=i586-mingw32msvc-g++
  ./configure --host=i586-mingw32msvc --build=i386-linux \
      --disable-[[gtk]] \
      --enable-[[nls]] --enable-[[sdl]] --with-sdl-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --enable-[[ffmpeg]] --with-ffmpeg-mp3lame --with-ffmpeg-[[faac]] \
      --with-ffmpeg-[[zlib]] --enable-[[faad]] --enable-[[flac]] --enable-[[theora]] \
      --with-[[wx]]-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-[[freetype]]-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-[[fribidi]]-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --enable-[[live555]] --with-live555-tree=$CONTRIBS/live.com \
      --enable-[[caca]] --with-caca-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-[[xml2]]-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-[[dvdnav]]-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --disable-[[cddax]] --disable-[[vcdx]] --enable-[[goom]] \
      --enable-[[twolame]] --enable-[[dvdread]] \
      --enable-[[debug]]

If you are using cygwin, you can build VLC with or without the POSIX emulation layer. Without is usually better and with POSIX emulation hasn't been tested in over a year. So to build without the emulation layer, use something like this:

  ./bootstrap && \
  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$CONTRIBS/lib/pkgconfig \
  CPPFLAGS="-I$CONTRIBS/include -I$CONTRIBS/include/ebml" CXXCPP=$CPPFLAGS \
  LDFLAGS=-L$CONTRIBS/lib \
  CC='gcc -mno-cygwin' CXX='g++ -mno-cygwin' \
  ./configure \
      --disable-gtk \
      --enable-nls --enable-sdl --with-sdl-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --enable-ffmpeg --with-ffmpeg-mp3lame --with-ffmpeg-faac \
      --with-ffmpeg-zlib --enable-faad --enable-flac --enable-theora \
      --with-wx-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-freetype-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-fribidi-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --enable-live555 --with-live555-tree=$CONTRIBS/live.com \
      --enable-caca --with-caca-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-xml2-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-dvdnav-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --disable-cddax --disable-vcdx --enable-goom \
      --enable-twolame --enable-dvdread \
      --enable-debug

If you want to use the emulation layer, then just omit <CODE>CFLAGS</CODE> and <CODE>CXXFLAGS</CODE>. You're on your own, though.

If you are compiling with MSYS/MINGW, then you can use something along those lines:
  ./bootstrap && \
  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$CONTRIBS/lib/pkgconfig \
  CPPFLAGS="-I$CONTRIBS/include -I$CONTRIBS/include/ebml" CXXCPP=$CPPFLAGS \
  LDFLAGS=-L$CONTRIBS/lib \
  ./configure \
      --disable-gtk \
      --enable-nls --enable-sdl --with-sdl-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --enable-ffmpeg --with-ffmpeg-mp3lame --with-ffmpeg-faac \
      --with-ffmpeg-zlib --enable-faad --enable-flac --enable-theora \
      --with-wx-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-freetype-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-fribidi-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --enable-caca --with-caca-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-xml2-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --with-dvdnav-config-path=$CONTRIBS/bin \
      --disable-cddax --disable-vcdx --enable-goom \
      --enable-twolame --enable-dvdread \
      --disable-[[mkv]] \
      --enable-debug

If you have used the "extras/contrib" way, you don't need to specify <CODE>CFLAGS</CODE>, <CODE>LDFLAGS</CODE> and <CODE>--with-foo-config-path=</CODE>.
 ./bootstrap && \
  ./configure \
      --disable-gtk \
      --enable-nls --enable-sdl \
      --enable-ffmpeg --enable-faad --enable-flac --enable-theora \
      --disable-cddax --disable-vcdx --enable-goom \
      --enable-twolame --enable-dvdread \
      --enable-mkv --enable-caca --enable-live555\
      --enable-debug

See <CODE>'./configure --help'</CODE> for more information.

==Building VLC==

Once configured, to build VLC, just run <CODE>'make'</CODE>.

Once the compilation is done, you can either run VLC directly from the source tree or you can build self-contained VLC packages with the following <CODE>make</CODE> rules:

{| class="wikitable"
 ! Command
 ! Description
|-
| <CODE>make package-win32-base</CODE>
| Creates a subdirectory named <CODE>vlc-x.x.x</CODE> with all the binaries 'stripped' (that is, smallest size, unusable with a debugger)
|-
| <CODE>make package-win32-zip</CODE>
| Same as above but will package the directory in a zip file.
|-
| <CODE>make package-win32</CODE>
| Same as above but will also create an auto-installer package. You must have NSIS installed in its default location for this to work.
|}

'''''Well done&mdash;you're ready to use VLC!'''''

[[Category:Building]]