Windows Build Instructions

Contents:

• Prerequisites

• Building Using conda (RECOMMENDED)

• Building Using vcpkg

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Prerequisites

• Compiler: C++20 support required

  • Windows: Visual Studio 2019 16.8+ or Visual Studio 2022

• Git: Any recent version

• CMake: 3.16 or newer

If you do not have these on your system, you can install them with:

Option 1: Visual Studio Installer (Recommended)

• Download and install Visual Studio Community (free)

• During installation, select “Desktop development with C++” workload

• This includes MSVC compiler, CMake, and Git

Option 2: Individual installations

# Install via winget (Windows Package Manager):
winget install Git.Git
winget install Kitware.CMake
winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.Community

Option 3: Chocolatey

# Install Chocolatey first, then:
choco install git cmake visualstudio2022community

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Building Using conda (RECOMMENDED)

Using conda is our recommended way to build and install Vira. We will assume you already have the required system prerequisites.

1. Setup conda (if you haven’t already):

   # Download and install Miniforge for Windows
   # Go to: https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge/releases/latest
   # Download: Miniforge3-Windows-x86_64.exe
   # Run the installer and follow the prompts
   

   After installation, open “Anaconda Prompt (miniforge3)” from the Start Menu and ensure you can activate the conda base environment (You should see a (base) to the left of your prompt)

2. Create the vira_env environment:

   conda env create -f dependencies/environment.yml
   conda activate vira_env
   

3. Build:

   mkdir build && cd build
   cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="../cmake/conda-toolchain.cmake" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ../
   cmake --build . --config Release -j
   

4. OPTIONAL - Installing in conda Environment: Once you have successfully built the project, you can install Vira into your conda environment (while still in the vira_env environment) using:

   cmake --install . --config Release
   

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Building Using vcpkg

vcpkg is a free open source package manager available on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. This is our primary recommendation when using Visual Studio on Windows. vcpkg builds libraries from source and so first time builds of Vira can seem excessive if using vcpkg. We will assume you already have the required system prerequisites.

1. Setup vcpkg:

   # Clone vcpkg to C:\vcpkg (or your preferred location)
   git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git C:\vcpkg
   cd C:\vcpkg
   .\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
   .\vcpkg integrate install
   

2. Build:

   mkdir build && cd build
   cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="C:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ../
   cmake --build . --config Release -j
   

   Note: If you installed vcpkg to a different location, adjust the toolchain file path accordingly.