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Compiling the whole project

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Duncan Ogilvie edited this page Apr 10, 2024 · 60 revisions

Prerequisites

Notice: It is important to install the exact versions of the tools mentioned hereafter.

  1. Install Visual Studio 2013 (en_visual_studio_ultimate_2013_with_update_5_x86_dvd_6815896.iso) (make sure to install MFC).
  2. Download Qt 5.6.3 (x86) for MSVC2013, install in C:\Qt\qt-5.6.3-x86-msvc2013.
  3. Download Qt 5.6.3 (x64) for MSVC2013, install in C:\Qt\qt-5.6.3-x64-msvc2013.
  4. Download Qt Creator 4.3.1, install in C:\Qt\qtcreator-4.3.1.
  5. Install CMake based on your architecture.
  6. Install Windows SDK.
  7. Clone the repository (development branch) to your local drive. Make sure to include the submodules in your clone command! 
git clone --recurse-submodules -b development https://github.com/x64dbg/x64dbg.git

Qt

Qt has made some changes to their licensing and deleted all the LTS packages (including source code) from their website. The original installers are mirrored on SourceForge and OSDN.

There is also a portable Qt archive Qt5.6.3-msvc2013-installed.7z, which is just both those installers extracted.

Configuring Qt Creator

If you downloaded Qt5.6.3-msvc2013-installed.7z you have to create your own kits. Relevant documentation:

Some screenshots showing how to configure 32-bit MSVC2013 Qt 5.6.3:

qt versions

qt kit

Pay attention to the warnings and select the compiler version that matches your Qt version (x86 for 32-bit, amd64 for 64-bit).

Compiling x64dbg

  1. Run install.bat to initialize the pre-commit formatting hooks
  2. Run setupdeps.bat to copy the dependencies
  3. Open x64dbg.sln in Visual Studio 2013
  4. Compile the solution in Release mode
  5. Open src\gui\x64dbg.pro in Qt Creator
  6. Compile the GUI in Release mode.

Compiling with different Visual Studio/Qt versions

While unsupported, people have built x64dbg with Visual Studio 2015/2017/2019 and/or newer Qt versions. If you use a different Qt version you have to run windeployqt.exe --force x64gui.dll to do this automatically.

If you encounter build errors with newer Qt or Visual Studio versions, a pull request is appreciated!

You can get the latest Qt versions from: https://www.qt.io/offline-installers

If you do not like Qt Creator you can try the Qt Visual Studio Tools.

Video

This video is slightly outdated. The process is still the same, except that you have to install Qt 5.6.0 (see the first section of this documented).

There is a video available where the build process (after installing the prerequisites) is shown. It is available on YouTube and in SWF Format.

This is a video by a_a_ but it uses Visual Studio 2017 and Qt 5.8 (both of which are currently not officially supported): https://vimeo.com/213004417 Note: The video is a bit dated, and the copy_libs.bat script displayed in the video does not copy all required DLLs to the output folder. Make sure to run setupdeps.bat before running the copy_libs.bat displayed in the video in order to copy all required DLLs to the output folder. Alternatively, run setupdeps.bat and then delete all the Qt DLLs in the output bin folder, and replace them with ones from your Qt version.

Custom paths

If you install Qt and/or Visual Studio in different paths, you can set (global) environment variables to make setenv.bat create a custom environment for compiling with build.bat.

  • set QT32PATH=C:\Qt\qt-5.6.3-x86-msvc2013\5.6\msvc2013\bin
  • set QT64PATH=C:\Qt\qt-5.6.3-x64-msvc2013\5.6\msvc2013_64\bin
  • set QTCREATORPATH=C:\Qt\qtcreator-4.3.1\bin
  • set VSVARSALLPATH=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat

Note: Due to continued vandalism it is no longer possible to edit the wiki directly. Instead you can suggest an edit in the x64dbg/wiki repository.

Clone this wiki locally