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 [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- 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/)
15- 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`.
16
17If you can't compile Zed, make sure that you have at least the following components installed:
18
19```json
20{
21 "version": "1.0",
22 "components": [
23 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreEditor",
24 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.CoreEditor",
25 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64",
26 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.WebToolsExtensions.CMake",
27 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CMake.Project",
28 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows11SDK.26100",
29 "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.x86.x64.Spectre"
30 ],
31 "extensions": []
32}
33```
34
35The list can be obtained as follows:
36
37- Open the Visual Studio Installer
38- Click on `More` in the `Installed` tab
39- Click on `Export configuration`
40
41## Backend dependencies
42
43> This section is still in development. The instructions are not yet complete.
44
45If you are developing collaborative features of Zed, you'll need to install the dependencies of zed's `collab` server:
46
47- Install [Postgres](https://www.postgresql.org/download/windows/)
48- Install [Livekit](https://github.com/livekit/livekit), optionally you can add the `livekit-server` binary to your `PATH`.
49
50Alternatively, if you have [Docker](https://www.docker.com/) installed you can bring up all the `collab` dependencies using Docker Compose:
51
52```sh
53docker compose up -d
54```
55
56### Notes
57
58You 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:
59
60```conf
61# IPv4 local connections:
62host all all 127.0.0.1/32 trust
63# IPv6 local connections:
64host all all ::1/128 trust
65```
66
67Also, 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:
68
69```conf
70# lc_messages = 'Chinese (Simplified)_China.936' # locale for system error message strings
71lc_messages = 'English_United States.1252'
72```
73
74After 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`.
75
76## Building from source
77
78Once you have the dependencies installed, you can build Zed using [Cargo](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/).
79
80For a debug build:
81
82```sh
83cargo run
84```
85
86For a release build:
87
88```sh
89cargo run --release
90```
91
92And to run the tests:
93
94```sh
95cargo test --workspace
96```
97
98## Installing from msys2
99
100[MSYS2](https://msys2.org/) distribution provides Zed as a package [mingw-w64-zed](https://packages.msys2.org/base/mingw-w64-zed). The package is available for UCRT64, MINGW64 and CLANG64 repositories. To download it, run
101
102```sh
103pacman -Syu
104pacman -S $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-zed
105```
106
107then you can run `zed` in a shell.
108
109You can see the [build script](https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/blob/master/mingw-w64-zed/PKGBUILD) for more details on build process.
110
111> Please, report any issue in [msys2/MINGW-packages/issues](https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+zed) first.
112
113## Troubleshooting
114
115### Can't compile zed
116
117Before reporting the issue, make sure that you have the latest rustc version with `rustup update`.
118
119### Cargo errors claiming that a dependency is using unstable features
120
121Try `cargo clean` and `cargo build`.
122
123### `STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION`
124
125This error can happen if you are using the "rust-lld.exe" linker. Consider trying a different linker.
126
127If 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.
128
129See this issue for more information [#12041](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/12041)
130
131### Invalid RC path selected
132
133Sometimes, depending on the security rules applied to your laptop, you may get the following error while compiling Zed:
134
135```
136error: failed to run custom build command for `zed(C:\Users\USER\src\zed\crates\zed)`
137
138Caused by:
139 process didn't exit successfully: `C:\Users\USER\src\zed\target\debug\build\zed-b24f1e9300107efc\build-script-build` (exit code: 1)
140 --- stdout
141 cargo:rerun-if-changed=../../.git/logs/HEAD
142 cargo:rustc-env=ZED_COMMIT_SHA=25e2e9c6727ba9b77415588cfa11fd969612adb7
143 cargo:rustc-link-arg=/stack:8388608
144 cargo:rerun-if-changed=resources/windows/app-icon.ico
145 package.metadata.winresource does not exist
146 Selected RC path: 'bin\x64\rc.exe'
147
148 --- stderr
149 The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)
150warning: build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish...
151```
152
153In 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:
154`C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\<SDK_version>\x64`.
155
156See this [issue](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/18393) for more information.
157
158### Build fails: Path too long
159
160You may receive an error like the following when building
161
162```
163error: failed to get `pet` as a dependency of package `languages v0.1.0 (D:\a\zed-windows-builds\zed-windows-builds\crates\languages)`
164
165Caused by:
166 failed to load source for dependency `pet`
167
168Caused by:
169 Unable to update https://github.com/microsoft/python-environment-tools.git?rev=ffcbf3f28c46633abd5448a52b1f396c322e0d6c#ffcbf3f2
170
171Caused by:
172 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)
173```
174
175In order to solve this, you can enable longpath support for git and Windows.
176
177For git: `git config --system core.longpaths true`
178
179And for Windows with this PS command:
180
181```powershell
182New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" -Name "LongPathsEnabled" -Value 1 -PropertyType DWORD -Force
183```
184
185For more information on this, please see [win32 docs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=powershell)
186
187(note that you will need to restart your system after enabling longpath support)