Introduction

This document describes how to build Gears for Windows.

Building

Install the following to create the build environment:

Visual Studio - There are two options:

VS 2005 - This can build the full version of Gears.
VS Express - This free package can only build the Firefox version of Gears. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/downloads/

Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2 - http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/usingpsdk/
Wix 3.0.2925 - http://wix.sourceforge.net/downloadv3.html
Python 2.4 - http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.4.4/python-2.4.4.msi
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.4.4.zip
Unxutils - ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/win95/unix/UnxUtils.zip and ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/win95/unix/UnxUpdates.zip.

Or you can get the combined package here.

Follow the instructions at http://code.google.com/p/gears/source to set up your source tree.

Finally open a command prompt, setup your build environment, and build Gears. (These instructions assume you put Gears in c:\svn-gears and installed Visual Studio and the Platform SDK to their default locations.)

Start -> Run -> cmd.exe

cd \svn-gears\gears\gears\
"c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\vcvarsall.bat"
"c:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2\SetEnv.cmd"
set PATH=%PATH%;<<python path>>;<<wix path>>;<<unxutils path>>\usr\local\wbin

Build Gears

make BROWSER=[IE|FF] MODE=[dbg|opt] OS=[win32|wince]

Installing

To install Gears, go to bin-dbg\win32\installers\ from your Gears directory and run the .msi (IE and Firefox) or open the .xpi (Firefox only).

Testing

After installing, you should restart your browser. Go to the Gears API page. At the lower left corner, it should indicate the build of Gears that is active. You should be able to try out the demos or create your own. You can also run the unit tests in the source tree (/gears/test/unit_tests.html).

Comment by mflueck, Jun 17, 2008

Platform SDK url seems to have changed

I used this one: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0BAF2B35-C656-4969-ACE8-E4C0C0716ADB&displaylang=en

Comment by hkadejo, Nov 26, 2008

I compile in windows and: LIBCMTD.lib(stdexcpt.obj) : error LNK2005 : ya se definio "public: virtual this call std:exception::~exception(void)" (??exception@std@VAE@XZ) en exception_handler_win32.obj

Why????

Comment by olajuwon, Dec 16, 2008

How to build a GoogleGears? which can be silently installed ??

Comment by oliver.zeigermann, Apr 22, 2009

Visual Studio 2005 is no longer available, but this works using the full version of MS Visual Studio 2008, but not with the express version. Start full compilation including installer by simply calling "make" without parameters.

Compiling using Visual Studio 2008 seems to require a small adjustment in the zlib sources. Putting <stdio.h> on top of the includes did the job for me.

Comment by Rick.hud...@intel.com, Jun 25, 2009

I got everything compiled but the make dependency to create the windows installer (.msi or .xpi file) seems to be missing. When we did this a year ago things worked so I suspect something has recently changed. Any clues about how to install the windows version (on Firefox 3.1) once it is compiled? - Rick

Comment by mansukim, Jul 07 (3 days ago)

To make it work with vs2008(winXP SP3, code page 949): 1) commented out "//line 200# define vsnprintf vsnprintf" "C:\svn-gears\gears\gears\third_party\zlib\zutil.h" 2) save as "C:\svn-gears\gears\gears\gears\base\common\url_utils_test.cc" in code page 949