anki/docs/windows.md

Windows

Requirements

Windows:

You must be running 64 bit Windows 10, version 1703 or newer.

The build system requires Developer Mode to be enabled.

Visual Studio:

Install the Visual Studio build tools.

Make sure the "C++ build tools" box is selected, and leave the default optional components enabled on the right.

MSYS:

Install msys2 into the default folder location.

After installation completes, run msys2, and run the following command:

$ pacman -S git

Bazel:

Use Start>Run to open PowerShell. Create a folder to store Bazel and its working data. Anki's build scripts expect to find it in \bazel on the same drive as the source folder.

PS> mkdir \bazel
PS> cd \bazel

Then grab Bazelisk:

PS> \msys64\usr\bin\curl -L https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazelisk/releases/download/v1.10.1/bazelisk-windows-amd64.exe -o bazel.exe

Source folder:

Anki's source files do not need to be in a specific location other than on the same drive as \bazel, but it's best to avoid long paths, as they can cause problems.

Running Anki during development

Open PowerShell and change to the top level of Anki's source folder, then run

.\run

This will build Anki and run it in place.

The first build will take a while, as it downloads and builds a bunch of dependencies. When the build is complete, Anki will automatically start.

To play and record audio, mpv.exe and lame.exe must be on the path.

Optimized builds

The .\run command will create a non-optimized build by default. This is faster to compile, but will mean Anki will run considerably slower.

To run Anki in optimized mode, use:

.\scripts\runopt

More

For info on running tests, building wheels and so on, please see Development.

Note that where the instructions on that page say "bazel", please use ".\bazel" instead. This runs bazel.bat inside the Anki source folder, instead of calling Bazel directly. This takes care of setting up the path and output folder correctly, which avoids issues with long path names.