Cross compilation with MSVC on Linux

This is a reproducible Dockerfile for cross compiling with MSVC on Linux, usable as base image for CI style setups.

This downloads and unpacks the necessary Visual Studio components using the same installer manifests as Visual Studio 2017/2019's installer uses. Downloading and installing it requires accepting the license, available at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=2086102 for the currently latest version.

As Visual Studio isn't redistributable, the resulting docker image isn't either.

Build the docker image like this:

docker build .

After building the docker image, there are 4 directories with tools, in /opt/msvc/bin/<arch>, for all architectures out of x86, x64, arm and arm64, that should be added to the PATH before building with it.

The installer scripts also work fine without docker; just run the following two commands:

./vsdownload.py --dest <dir>
./install.sh <dir>

The unpacking requires recent versions of msitools (0.98) and libgcab (1.2); sufficiently new versions are available in e.g. Ubuntu 19.04.

Build instructions for local installation

The following instructions are for setting up MSVC without docker.

Prerequisites

apt-get update
apt-get install -y wine64-development python msitools python-simplejson python-six ca-certificates winbind

Installation

We're going to install it into ~/my_msvc to avoid needing root privileges on a non-contained system.

# Download and unpack MSVC
./vsdownload.py --dest ~/my_msvc/opt/msvc
# Add wrapper scripts, do minor cleanup of the unpacked MSVC installation
./install.sh ~/my_msvc/opt/msvc

# Custom CMake
git clone https://gitlab.kitware.com/mstorsjo/cmake.git
cd cmake
git checkout 844ccd2280d11ada286d0e2547c0fa5ff22bd4db
mkdir build 
cd build
../configure --prefix=~/my_msvc/opt/cmake --parallel=$(nproc) -- -DCMAKE_USE_OPENSSL=OFF
make -j$(nproc)
make install

# Run wine at least once
wineserver -k # kills server (optional)
wineserver -p
wine64 wineboot

Setting up your project with CMake

You need to set the path to prioritize our custom CMake, and also to see our MSVC installation. After that we just run CMake command with a few extra settings:

export PATH=~/my_msvc/opt/cmake/bin:$PATH
export PATH=~/my_msvc/opt/msvc/bin/x64:$PATH
CC=cl CXX=cl cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_PROGRAMS=ON -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=Windows -DCMAKE_CROSSCOMPILING=ON
make

FAQ

Does it run on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS?

Yes, but the install scripts won't work because msitools is too old. You'll need to install either via Docker or on a real Ubuntu 20.04 LTS machine; and later copy paste the files under /opt/msvc.

Does it work with CMake?

Yes, but a custom version is needed or else CMake will complain that /opt/msvc/bin/x64/cl can't build a simple program.

It also fixes the Ninja Generator which otherwise has trouble finding RC.

Can it build Debug versions?

Yes, but there may be troubles. From wine errors appearing in the logs/console to problems when trying to launch it because of missing debug redistributables. You will also have to install winbind (see next item).

For the best out-of-the-box experience build in Release mode.

fatal error C1902: Program database manager mismatch; please check your installation

You need winbind: sudo apt install winbind

Issue is being tracked.

What generators work with CMake?

The following generators were tested and known to work:

Ninja
Unix Makefiles

Other generators are untested and may or may not work. Use it at your own peril.

Do I need CMake to use msvc-wine?

No. Using Ninja or GNU Make directly should work.

I get `ninja: error: build.ninja:225: bad $-escape (literal $ must be written as $$)`

Visual Studio can switch between Debug/Release/RelWithDebInfo/etc at build time in the IDE.

It's slightly common for CMake projects to use $(CONFIGURATION) macro from Visual Studio to resolve commands to each intended configuration automatically.

However generators like Ninja/Unix Makefiles can only target one configuration at a time.

You'll have to edit the CMake script to use ${CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE} instead when using Ninja/Unix Makefiles generators (which is extremely rare to use in an actual Windows environment).

Note the script may have other hardcoded commands which use $(...) syntax that make no sense when using generators other than Visual Studio; and will need to be fixed accordingly.

This is not an msvc-wine bug.

falhumai96/msvc-wine