Set Rust toolchain to MSVC

Tell Rust to use MSVC by executing:

rustup default stable-msvc

Note that this does not install the MSVC toolchain. If you don't have it yet, you will need to install it separately.

Build GTK 4

Follow the gvsbuild docs to build GTK 4. Be sure to build the right version:

gvsbuild build gtk4

Update environment variables

1. Go to Start
2. Search for 'Advanced system settings'
3. Click 'Environment Variables...'
4. Ensure there is a user variable named PKG_CONFIG_PATH with value C:\gtk-build\gtk\x64\release\lib\pkgconfig
5. Edit the variable named Path and add C:\gtk-build\gtk\x64\release\bin to it
6. Ensure there is a user variable named Lib with value C:\gtk-build\gtk\x64\release\lib (or add new value to existing variable if already exists)

You can now continue with the project setup.

If it's not possible to build with gvsbuild (or you want to customize your build), you can build GTK 4 and the minimum dependencies you need manually.

Set Rust toolchain to MSVC

Set the Rust toolchain to MSVC by executing:

rustup default stable-msvc

Visual Studio

Install Visual Studio Community from visualstudio.microsoft.com. Make sure to check the box "Desktop development with C++" during the installation process.

Git

Download git from gitforwindows.org.

CMake

Download CMake from https://cmake.org/download/

Python

Download python from python.org. Make sure to opt-in to adding Python to your Path during the installation process.

Meson

Install meson by executing:

pip install meson ninja

Gettext 0.21

Download Gettext 0.21 from mlocati.github.io. Make sure to select the static version.

Pkg-config

Download pkg-config-lite from sourceforge.net. Then extract and unpack it in C:/, so that the executable is in C:\pkg-config-lite-0.28-1\bin.

Update environment variables

1. Go to settings -> Search and open Advanced system settings -> Click on Environment variables
2. Select Path -> Click on Edit -> Add the following entries:

C:\pkg-config-lite-0.28-1\bin
C:\gnome\bin

3. Go back to Environment variables
4. Under User variables click on New and add:

• Variable name: PKG_CONFIG_PATH
• Variable value: C:\gnome\lib\pkgconfig

Compile and install GTK 4

From the Windows start menu, search for x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2019. That will open a terminal configured to use MSVC x64 tools. From there, run the following commands:

cd /
git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk.git --depth 1
git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxml2.git --depth 1
git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/librsvg.git --depth 1

:: Make sure that cmd finds pkg-config-lite when searching for pkg-config
where pkg-config

:: Make sure that setuptools is available.
pip install setuptools

cd gtk
meson setup builddir --prefix=C:/gnome -Dbuild-tests=false -Dmedia-gstreamer=disabled
meson install -C builddir
cd /

cd libxml2
cmake -S . -B build -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\gnome -D LIBXML2_WITH_ICONV=OFF -D LIBXML2_WITH_LZMA=OFF -D LIBXML2_WITH_PYTHON=OFF -D LIBXML2_WITH_ZLIB=OFF
cmake --build build --config Release
cmake --install build
cd /

cd librsvg/win32
nmake /f generate-msvc.mak generate-nmake-files
nmake /f Makefile.vc CFG=release install PREFIX=C:\gnome
cd /

You can now continue with the project setup.

Install Rustup

Install the rust toolchain via rustup.

Remove residues from the MSVC toolchain

If you used the MSVC toolchain before, make sure to revert all changes you made to environment variables during the installation process.

MSYS2

Install MSYS2 from www.msys2.org

Install GTK 4

From the Windows start menu, search for MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit. That will open a terminal configured to use MinGW x64 tools.

There, execute the following commands to install GTK 4, pkgconf and gcc.

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gtk4 mingw-w64-x86_64-gettext mingw-w64-x86_64-libxml2 mingw-w64-x86_64-librsvg mingw-w64-x86_64-pkgconf mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc

Update Path environment variable

1. Go to settings -> Search and open Advanced system settings -> Click on Environment variables
2. Select Path -> Click on Edit -> Add the following three entries:

C:\msys64\mingw64\include
C:\msys64\mingw64\bin
C:\msys64\mingw64\lib

Setup the GNU toolchain for Rust

The default toolchain on windows is stable-msvc. To switch to stable-gnu, run the following commands from your terminal:

1. rustup toolchain install stable-gnu
2. rustup default stable-gnu

Please note that this command might change in the future. If it does not work anymore, please open an issue on our repo.

You can now continue with the project setup.