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Building Mozilla on Microsoft Windows 32-bit platforms using nmake

Daniel Nunes, `leaf@mozilla.org`

How to build Mozilla on a Microsoft Windows 32-bit System using nmake.

1. Introduction

3. Win32 Debugging FAQ

4. Common Problems

1. Introduction

What this document is: A guide to building the Mozilla application using nmake.
This includes:

A listing of the development tools you will need to build Mozilla.
A list of environment variables you will need to set before building.

Please note that building using nmake is unsupported when building using the Mozilla trunk. These instructions are provided as a convenience for existing branches that require nmake to build.

If you're looking for documentation on developing features or fixing bugs, the Mozilla Hacking Documents are probably what you're looking for.

2. Building Mozilla

2.1 Requirements

Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or later
(make sure you have set up the compiler using the vcvars32.bat script that came with it. Version 5.0 will not work)
MSVC++ Service Pack 5
MSVC++ Processor Pack
GNU Tools for Microsoft Windows (the Cygnus toolkit):
Specifically, you'll need the following packages:
Netscape wintools:
CVS for win32:
Perl5 for win32:
Zip for win32:
Addition note for users inside Netscape firewall:

Hardware/OS

Pentium 133 MHz or better
64 MB RAM, 128 MB recommended
1 GB NTFS or 2 GB FAT disk space, or more
NT 4.0 is preferred
NT 3.51, Win95, Win98, and Windows 2000 will also work.

2.2 Set Up The Build Environment


              set MOZ_BITS=32

	      set MOZ_DEBUG=1

              (set this only if you want to build a debug build). to build
              optimized, undefine the variable by doing "set MOZ_DEBUG="

	      set MOZ_NT=351

              (if running NT3.51)
	      gmake.exe from the Windows Build Tools package resides there.)

	      set MOZ_SRC=

              (top of your tree, for example: set 
	      MOZ_SRC=d:\mozilla_source 
	      if this is the directory where you checked out or 
	      unzipped the source into... don't end this line with a
	      '\'... you'll be sorry if you do)

	      set MOZ_TOOLS=

              (Set to the place where you want Netscape's wintools.zip to install its binaries.  Do NOT overwrite your cygwin installation with wintools binaries . The build
	      looks for MOZ_TOOLS\bin\gmake.exe, so make sure that the 
	      gmake.exe from the Windows Build Tools package resides there.)

	      set OS_TARGET=WINNT

              (or WIN95)

	      set WINOS=%OS_TARGET%

	      set PATH=%PATH%;%MOZ_TOOLS%\bin;c:\cygwin\bin

	      set _MSC_VER=1100

              (if you are running VC++ 5.0) or 1200 
	      (if you are running VC++ 6.0) - or -
	      set MOZ_VCVER=42 (for version 4.2, though no 
	      reports of successful compilation have been reported with 4.2)

	      set DISABLE_TESTS=

              (Set this if you want to skip building in the test directories)

	      set MOZ_DISABLE_JAR_PACKAGING=1

              (Set this if you want to disable jar packaging of the chrome)

PATH

INCLUDE

LIB

Visual C++ creates a file, VCVARS32.BAT, during the install that can set these for you. It can be found in D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Bin (this is the location in VC++6, the directory names differ in previous versions) and should be run prior to starting the build. Note that VCVARS32.BAT is created dynamically so, even if you have installed VC++ in a non-standard location, the paths it sets will be correct.

2.3 Get The Code

There are two principal ways of getting the code, ftp and CVS. CVS will provide the most current code for building, but is slower than ftp. Ftp drops are generally produced daily, and are known to compile.

If you prefer to initially get the source via FTP then copy the tarball to your MOZ_SRC directory and uncompress it.

2.4 Compile The Code

cd d:\mozilla_source

If you already copied the source there from a tarball, there should be one directory here named mozilla. Change to that directory and run nmake with the build_all option so that nmake doesn't use CVS to update your tree.

cd mozilla
nmake /f client.mak build_all

If you're checking out the source via CVS, then check out the makefile, change to the new mozilla directory it creates, and run nmake. The makefile checks out the source and builds the tree in one step.


cvs co  mozilla/client.mak
cd mozilla
nmake /f client.mak

3. Win32 Debugging FAQ

Tips on how to debug Mozilla on Microsoft Windows platforms has been collected in the Win32 Debugging FAQ.

4. Common Sticking Points

nmake has a 'fatal error', listing one of the GNU commands and a hexadecimal return code.
Building on NT after upgrading from 98: nmake reports "Error U1045: spawn failed"
It fails with the message "'.\WIN32' unexpected":
It fails to build, with directory-related errors:
It fails immediately with the message "Cannot find specified directory":
I'm not running a 32-bit windows system, how do i build?
I'm not using the standard cmd.exe, and my build fails...
I checked in something that builds on Windows, but it breaks other platforms ...
The build breaks on Windows while creating jar files.
CVS fails with the message:
cvs update: authorization failed: server XXXX rejected access
cvs update: used empty password; try "cvs login" with a real password :
gmake errors with the message: Interrupt/Exception caught (code = 0xXXXXXXXXX, addr = 0...
gmake errors with the message: SHMSDOS: cp: WIN954.0_OPT.OBJ\nspr4.dll: No such file or directory
Make spits out an error about not being able to find a .dtd file
'nmake /f client.mak build_all' from a windows command shell gives the error:
loading cache ./config.cache configure: error: can not run ./build/autoconf/config.sub

Building Mozilla on Microsoft Windows 32-bit platforms using nmake

Daniel Nunes, leaf@mozilla.org

1. Introduction

2. Building Mozilla

3. Win32 Debugging FAQ

4. Common Problems

Daniel Nunes, `leaf@mozilla.org`