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Windows
You can build curl on Windows in several different ways. We recommend using the MSVC compiler from Microsoft or the free and open source mingw compiler. The build process is, however, not limited to these.
If you use mingw, you might want to use the autotools build system.
winbuild
This is how to build curl and libcurl using the command line.
Build with MSVC using the nmake utility like this:
cd winbuild
Decide what options to enable/disable in your build. The README.md file in that directly details them all, but an example command line could look like this (split into several lines for readability):
nmake WITH_SSL=dll WITH_NGHTTP2=dll ENABLE_IPV6=yes \
WITH_ZLIB=dll MACHINE=x64 
Visual C++ project files
curl tarballs ship with pre-generated project files that you can load and build curl with.
Project files are provided for several different Visual C++ versions.
To build with VC++, you will of course have to first install VC++ which is part of Visual Studio.
Once you have VC++ installed you should launch the application and open one of the solution or workspace files. The VC directory names are based on the version of Visual C++ that you will be using. Each version of Visual Studio has a default version of Visual C++. We offer these versions:
VC10 (Visual Studio 2010 Version 10.0)
VC11 (Visual Studio 2012 Version 11.0)
VC12 (Visual Studio 2013 Version 12.0)
VC14 (Visual Studio 2015 Version 14.0)
VC14.10 (Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.0)
VC14.30 (Visual Studio 2022 Version 17.0)
Separate solutions are provided for both libcurl and the curl command line tool as well as a solution that includes both projects. libcurl.sln, curl.sln and curl-all.sln, respectively. We recommend using curl-all.sln to build both projects.
For example, if you are using Visual Studio 2022 then you should be able to use VC14.30\curl-all.sln to build curl and libcurl.
Running DLL based configurations
If you are a developer and plan to run the curl tool from Visual Studio (eg you are debugging) with any third-party libraries (such as OpenSSL, wolfSSL or libSSH2) then you will need to add the search path of these DLLs to the configuration's PATH environment. To do that:
1.Open the 'curl-all.sln' or 'curl.sln' solutions
2.Right-click on the 'curl' project and select Properties
3.Navigate to 'Configuration Properties > Debugging > Environment'
4.Add PATH='Path to DLL';C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
... where 'Path to DLL` is the configuration specific path. For example the following configurations in Visual Studio 2010 might be:
DLL Debug - DLL OpenSSL (Win32):
PATH=..\..\..\..\..\openssl\build\Win32\VC10\DLL Debug;C:\Windows\system32;
C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
DLL Debug - DLL OpenSSL (x64):
PATH=..\..\..\..\..\openssl\build\Win64\VC10\DLL Debug;C:\Windows\system32;
C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
DLL Debug - DLL wolfSSL (Win32):
PATH=..\..\..\..\..\wolfssl\build\Win32\VC10\DLL Debug;C:\Windows\system32;
C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
DLL Debug - DLL wolfSSL (x64):
PATH=..\..\..\..\..\wolfssl\build\Win64\VC10\DLL Debug;C:\Windows\system32;
C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
If you are using a configuration that uses multiple third-party library DLLs (such as DLL Debug - DLL OpenSSL - DLL LibSSH2) then Path to DLL will need to contain the path to both of these.
Notes
The following keywords have been used in the directory hierarchy:
<platform> - The platform (For example: Windows)
<ide> - The IDE (For example: VC10)
<architecture> - The platform architecture (For example: Win32, Win64)
<configuration> - The target configuration (For example: DLL Debug, LIB Release - LIB OpenSSL)
If you are using the source code from the git repository, rather than a release archive or nightly build, you will need to generate the project files. Please run "generate -help" for usage details.
Should you wish to help out with some of the items on the TODO list, or find bugs in the project files that need correcting, and would like to submit updated files back then please note that, whilst the solution files can be edited directly, the templates for the project files (which are stored in the git repository) will need to be modified rather than the generated project files that Visual Studio uses.
CMake
Dependencies
Last modified 3mo ago
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winbuild
Visual C++ project files
Running DLL based configurations
Notes