1# Building Zed for Windows
  2
  3> The following commands may be executed in any shell.
  4
  5## Repository
  6
  7Clone down the [Zed repository](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed).
  8
  9## Dependencies
 10
 11- Install [rustup](https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install)
 12
 13- Install either [Visual Studio](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/) with the optional components `MSVC v*** - VS YYYY C++ x64/x86 build tools` and `MSVC v*** - VS YYYY C++ x64/x86 Spectre-mitigated libs (latest)` (`v***` is your VS version and `YYYY` is year when your VS was released. Pay attention to the architecture and change it to yours if needed.)
 14- Or, if you prefer to have a slimmer installer of only the MSVC compiler tools, you can install the [build tools](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/) (+libs as above) and the "Desktop development with C++" workload.
 15  But beware this installation is not automatically picked up by rustup. You must initialize your environment variables by first launching the "developer" shell (cmd/powershell) this installation places in the start menu or in Windows Terminal and then compile.
 16- Install Windows 11 or 10 SDK depending on your system, but ensure that at least `Windows 10 SDK version 2104 (10.0.20348.0)` is installed on your machine. You can download it from the [Windows SDK Archive](https://developer.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/windows-sdk/)
 17- Install [CMake](https://cmake.org/download) (required by [a dependency](https://docs.rs/wasmtime-c-api-impl/latest/wasmtime_c_api/)). Or you can install it through Visual Studio Installer, then manually add the `bin` directory to your `PATH`, for example: `C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin`.
 18
 19If you can't compile Zed, make sure that you have at least the following components installed in case of a Visual Studio installation:
 20
 21```json [settings]
 22{
 23  "version": "1.0",
 24  "components": [
 25    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreEditor",
 26    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.CoreEditor",
 27    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64",
 28    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.WebToolsExtensions.CMake",
 29    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CMake.Project",
 30    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows11SDK.26100",
 31    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.x86.x64.Spectre"
 32  ],
 33  "extensions": []
 34}
 35```
 36
 37Or if in case of just Build Tools, the following components:
 38
 39```json [settings]
 40{
 41  "version": "1.0",
 42  "components": [
 43    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Roslyn.Compiler",
 44    "Microsoft.Component.MSBuild",
 45    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreBuildTools",
 46    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools",
 47    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK",
 48    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreBuildTools",
 49    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64",
 50    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Redist.14.Latest",
 51    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows11SDK.26100",
 52    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CMake.Project",
 53    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TextTemplating",
 54    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreIde",
 55    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.NativeDesktop.Core",
 56    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools",
 57    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.x86.x64.Spectre"
 58  ],
 59  "extensions": []
 60}
 61```
 62
 63The list can be obtained as follows:
 64
 65- Open the Visual Studio Installer
 66- Click on `More` in the `Installed` tab
 67- Click on `Export configuration`
 68
 69### Backend Dependencies (optional) {#backend-dependencies}
 70
 71If you are looking to develop Zed collaboration features using a local collaboration server, please see: [Local Collaboration](./local-collaboration.md) docs.
 72
 73### Notes
 74
 75You should modify the `pg_hba.conf` file in the `data` directory to use `trust` instead of `scram-sha-256` for the `host` method. Otherwise, the connection will fail with the error `password authentication failed`. The `pg_hba.conf` file typically locates at `C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\17\data\pg_hba.conf`. After the modification, the file should look like this:
 76
 77```conf
 78# IPv4 local connections:
 79host    all             all             127.0.0.1/32            trust
 80# IPv6 local connections:
 81host    all             all             ::1/128                 trust
 82```
 83
 84Also, if you are using a non-latin Windows version, you must modify the`lc_messages` parameter in the `postgresql.conf` file in the `data` directory to `English_United States.1252` (or whatever UTF8-compatible encoding you have). Otherwise, the database will panic. The `postgresql.conf` file should look like this:
 85
 86```conf
 87# lc_messages = 'Chinese (Simplified)_China.936' # locale for system error message strings
 88lc_messages = 'English_United States.1252'
 89```
 90
 91After this, you should restart the `postgresql` service. Press the `win` key + `R` to launch the `Run` window. Type the `services.msc` and hit the `OK` button to open the Services Manager. Then, find the `postgresql-x64-XX` service, right-click on it, and select `Restart`.
 92
 93## Building from source
 94
 95Once you have the dependencies installed, you can build Zed using [Cargo](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/).
 96
 97For a debug build:
 98
 99```sh
100cargo run
101```
102
103For a release build:
104
105```sh
106cargo run --release
107```
108
109And to run the tests:
110
111```sh
112cargo test --workspace
113```
114
115## Installing from msys2
116
117Zed does not support unofficial MSYS2 Zed packages built for Mingw-w64. Please report any issues you may have with [mingw-w64-zed](https://packages.msys2.org/base/mingw-w64-zed) to [msys2/MINGW-packages/issues](https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+zed).
118
119Please refer to [MSYS2 documentation](https://www.msys2.org/docs/ides-editors/#zed) first.
120
121## Troubleshooting
122
123### Setting `RUSTFLAGS` env var breaks builds
124
125If you set the `RUSTFLAGS` env var, it will override the `rustflags` settings in `.cargo/config.toml` which is required to properly build Zed.
126
127Since these settings can vary from time to time, the build errors you receive may vary from linker errors, to other stranger errors.
128
129If you'd like to add extra rust flags, you may do 1 of the following in `.cargo/config.toml`:
130
131Add your flags in the build section
132
133```toml
134[build]
135rustflags = ["-C", "symbol-mangling-version=v0", "--cfg", "tokio_unstable"]
136```
137
138Add your flags in the windows target section
139
140```toml
141[target.'cfg(target_os = "windows")']
142rustflags = [
143    "--cfg",
144    "windows_slim_errors",
145    "-C",
146    "target-feature=+crt-static",
147]
148```
149
150Or, you can create a new `.cargo/config.toml` in the same folder as the Zed repo (see below). This is particularly useful if you are doing CI builds since you don't have to edit the original `.cargo/config.toml`.
151
152```
153upper_dir
154├── .cargo          // <-- Make this folder
155│   └── config.toml // <-- Make this file
156└── zed
157    ├── .cargo
158    │   └── config.toml
159    └── crates
160        ├── assistant
161        └── ...
162```
163
164In the new (above) `.cargo/config.toml`, if we wanted to add `--cfg gles` to our rustflags, it would look like this
165
166```toml
167[target.'cfg(all())']
168rustflags = ["--cfg", "gles"]
169```
170
171### Cargo errors claiming that a dependency is using unstable features
172
173Try `cargo clean` and `cargo build`.
174
175### `STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION`
176
177This error can happen if you are using the "rust-lld.exe" linker. Consider trying a different linker.
178
179If you are using a global config, consider moving the Zed repository to a nested directory and add a `.cargo/config.toml` with a custom linker config in the parent directory.
180
181See this issue for more information [#12041](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/12041)
182
183### Invalid RC path selected
184
185Sometimes, depending on the security rules applied to your laptop, you may get the following error while compiling Zed:
186
187```
188error: failed to run custom build command for `zed(C:\Users\USER\src\zed\crates\zed)`
189
190Caused by:
191  process didn't exit successfully: `C:\Users\USER\src\zed\target\debug\build\zed-b24f1e9300107efc\build-script-build` (exit code: 1)
192  --- stdout
193  cargo:rerun-if-changed=../../.git/logs/HEAD
194  cargo:rustc-env=ZED_COMMIT_SHA=25e2e9c6727ba9b77415588cfa11fd969612adb7
195  cargo:rustc-link-arg=/stack:8388608
196  cargo:rerun-if-changed=resources/windows/app-icon.ico
197  package.metadata.winresource does not exist
198  Selected RC path: 'bin\x64\rc.exe'
199
200  --- stderr
201  The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)
202warning: build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish...
203```
204
205In order to fix this issue, you can manually set the `ZED_RC_TOOLKIT_PATH` environment variable to the RC toolkit path. Usually, you can set it to:
206`C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\<SDK_version>\x64`.
207
208See this [issue](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/18393) for more information.
209
210### Build fails: Path too long
211
212You may receive an error like the following when building
213
214```
215error: failed to get `pet` as a dependency of package `languages v0.1.0 (D:\a\zed-windows-builds\zed-windows-builds\crates\languages)`
216
217Caused by:
218  failed to load source for dependency `pet`
219
220Caused by:
221  Unable to update https://github.com/microsoft/python-environment-tools.git?rev=ffcbf3f28c46633abd5448a52b1f396c322e0d6c#ffcbf3f2
222
223Caused by:
224  path too long: 'C:/Users/runneradmin/.cargo/git/checkouts/python-environment-tools-903993894b37a7d2/ffcbf3f/crates/pet-conda/tests/unix/conda_env_without_manager_but_found_in_history/some_other_location/conda_install/conda-meta/python-fastjsonschema-2.16.2-py310hca03da5_0.json'; class=Filesystem (30)
225```
226
227In order to solve this, you can enable longpath support for git and Windows.
228
229For git: `git config --system core.longpaths true`
230
231And for Windows with this PS command:
232
233```powershell
234New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" -Name "LongPathsEnabled" -Value 1 -PropertyType DWORD -Force
235```
236
237For more information on this, please see [win32 docs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=powershell)
238
239(note that you will need to restart your system after enabling longpath support)
240
241### Graphics issues
242
243#### Zed fails to launch
244
245Currently, Zed uses Vulkan as its graphics API on Windows. However, Vulkan isn't always the most reliable on Windows, so if Zed fails to launch, it's likely a Vulkan-related issue.
246
247You can check the Zed log at:
248`C:\Users\YOU\AppData\Local\Zed\logs\Zed.log`
249
250If you see messages like:
251
252- `Zed failed to open a window: NoSupportedDeviceFound`
253- `ERROR_INITIALIZATION_FAILED`
254- `GPU Crashed`
255- `ERROR_SURFACE_LOST_KHR`
256
257Then Vulkan might not be working properly on your system. In most cases, updating your GPU drivers may help resolve this.
258
259If there's nothing Vulkan-related in the logs and you happen to have Bandicam installed, try uninstalling it. Zed is currently not compatible with Bandicam.