-INSTALL file for the Windows9x/2k/XP version of vlc, the VideoLAN Client
+INSTALL file for the Windows XP/Vista/Seven version of VLC media player
-Running VideoLAN Client
-=======================
-If you have already built vlc (see below) or are using a binary release,
-just run 'vlc.exe'.
+Running VLC
+===========
-You can also run vlc from a dos command box, in which case you'll be able
+If you are using a binary release from videolan.org or if you have already built
+VLC (see below), just run 'vlc.exe'.
+
+You can also run VLC from a dos command box, in which case you'll be able
to use the command line arguments. You can obtain a list of these command
-line arguments by typing 'vlc --help'.
-To store a debug log of the current vlc session, you can use
-'vlc -vvvvv --intf=logger nameofyourvideofile', but this will unfortunatly
-disable the GUI. You will end-up with a vlc.log file in your current directory.
+line arguments by typing 'vlc --help' or 'vlc --help --advanced'.
+
+To store a debug log of the current VLC session, you can use
+'vlc -vvv --extraintf=logger'. You will end-up with a vlc-log.txt file in
+your current directory.
+
+Additional documentation is available at http://www.videolan.org/doc/ and http://wiki.videolan.org/.
+
-If you want to play a DVD, run vlc and click on the Disc option in the
-interface. You then have to type your drive letter in the 'Device name'
-box (eg. 'D:' if your dvdrom drive is assigned the letter 'D').
-( !WARNING: you have to be in administrator mode (for now) on Win2k/XP or the
- DVD won't play. )
+Building VLC from the source code
+=================================
-Building VideoLAN Client from the source code
-=============================================
+If you want to build VLC from sources, you can do it in several ways:
-If you want to do the tricky job of building vlc from sources, you can do it
-in two ways:
+- On GNU/Linux, using the mingw32 cross-compiler.
+ This method is preferred over all the others.
- natively on Windows, using MSYS+MINGW (www.mingw.org)
- (MSYS is a minimal build environnement to compile unixish projects under
- windoze. It provides all the common unix tools like sh, gmake...)
+ (MSYS is a minimal build environment to compile Unixish projects under
+ windows. It provides all the common Unix tools like sh, gmake...)
-- or on Linux, using the mingw32 cross-compiler
+UNSUPPORTED METHODS
+-------------------
+- natively on Windows, using cygwin (www.cygwin.com) with or without the
+ POSIX emulation layer. This is the preferred way to compile vlc if you want
+ to do it on Windows.
+ Read http://wiki.videolan.org/Win32CompileCygwinNew to have a complete HOWTO
-Getting the right tools
-=======================
+- natively on Windows, using Microsoft Visual Studio. This will not work.
+
+
+Getting the right compiler tools
+================================
- cross-compiling with mingw32:
-All the necessary tools you need can be found on the videolan web site:
-http://www.videolan.org/vlc/windows.html
+You first need to download a GNU/Linux cross-compiler version of mingw32.
+
+For Debian GNU/Linux users, you can use the gcc-mingw32, mingw32-binutils and
+mingw32-runtime packages.
+For Fedora users, you can use mingw-binutils, mingw-gcc-core, mingw-gcc-g++
-You first need to download a linux cross-compiler version of mingw32.
-(for Debian GNU/Linux users, there is a mingw32 package)
+For MingW and Cygwin, please refer to our Wiki:
+- http://wiki.videolan.org/Win32CompileMSYS
+- http://wiki.videolan.org/Win32CompileCygwin
-You must also not forget to install the extra development packages if you want
-to build the DirectX, GTK and SDL plugins.
-- compiling natively on Windoze:
-You first need to download and install MSYS-1.0.5 (version 1.0.6 doesn't seem
-to work as well) and MINGW.
-http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mingw/msys-1.0.5-i686-bin.tar.gz
-http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mingw/MinGW-1.1.tar.gz
+Getting the additional libraries
+=================================
-You must also not forget to install the extra development packages if you want
-to build the DirectX, GTK and SDL plugins.
-(http://www.videolan.org/vlc/windows.html)
+VLC depends on many other libraries to provide some features like most of the codecs.
+Usually, you don't want to compile those by yourself, so use pre-compiled ones.
+
+* We also provide a package with all the libraries already compiled so it is
+ actually really easy to compile a full-featured version of vlc (these compiled
+ libraries will only work with mingw or cygwin):
+ http://download.videolan.org/pub/testing/win32/contrib-200xxxxx-win32-bin-gcc-x.x.x-only.tar.bz2
+ (Check out for more recent versions at the same location).
+
+ All you need to do is extract it in your root directory (the include files
+ and libraries will be put in /usr/win32). You can do this with the following
+ command:
+
+ tar xjvf contrib-20060330-win32-bin-gcc-3.4.5-only.tar.bz2 -C /
+
+ Please note the "-C /".
+
+* An automated way of building the contrib libraries is provided in
+ extra/contrib. It will download, configure and build the libraries.
+ See the extras/contrib/README for more info.
-NOTE: by default, the GTK package is configured to be installed in
-/usr/local/gtk-win32, if you want to change this path, then you need to edit
-the gtk-win32/bin/gtk-config file and change "gtk_dir=" accordingly.
-The same is true for the SDL package, it is installed in
-/usr/local/SDL-1.2.3-win32 by default and you need to change "prefix=" in
-SDL-1.2.3-win32/i386-mingw32msvc/bin/sdl-config if you plan to extract the
-archive in a different directory.
Configuring the build
=====================
-The best way to configure the build process of vlc is to use the
-`./configure' script.
+Once you've got all the files you need in place, you need to configure the
+build with the `./configure' script.
-See `./configure --help' for more information.
+I'll assume that you are using the pre-compiled 3rd party libraries we are
+providing and that they are in /usr/win32.
-If you are cross-compiling from Debian, you can use something
-along those lines:
+If you are cross-compiling from Debian, you can use this:
- make distclean ; \
- ./configure --host=i586-mingw32msvc --target=i586-mingw32msvc \
- --build=i386-linux \
- --with-gtk-config-path=/usr/local/gtk-win32/bin \
- --with-sdl-config-path=/usr/local/SDL-1.2.3-win32/i386-mingw32msvc/bin \
- --with-directx=/usr/local/dxheaders
+ sh extras/package/win32/configure-mingw.sh
-If you are cross-compiling using the mingw32 package provided by
-www.videolan.org, you have to use something along those lines:
- CC=/usr/local/cross-tools/bin/i586-mingw32msvc-gcc \
- PATH=/usr/local/cross-tools/bin:$PATH \
- ./configure --host=i586-mingw32msvc --target=i586-mingw32msvc \
- --build=i386-linux \
- --with-gtk-config-path=/usr/local/gtk-win32/bin \
- --with-sdl-config-path=/usr/local/SDL-1.2.3-win32/i386-mingw32msvc/bin \
- --with-directx=/usr/local/dxheaders
+If you are compiling with MSYS/MINGW, then you can use this:
-If you are compiling natively on Windoze, then you can use something
-along those lines:
- MAKE=gmake ./configure \
- --with-gtk-config-path=/c/dev/gtk-win32/bin \
- --with-sdl-config-path=/c/dev/SDL-1.2.3-win32/i386-mingw32msvc/bin \
- --with-directx=/c/dev/dxheaders
+ sh extras/package/win32/configure-msys.sh
-Building VideoLAN Client
-========================
-Have a look at the generated Makefile.opts file, you may want to choose
-which modules will be compiled as plugins, and which ones will remain in
-the core application. The configure script tries to guess for you.
+If you are using cygwin, you should build VLC without the POSIX emulation layer.
+Use this:
-Once configured, to build vlc you have to:
+ sh extras/package/win32/configure-cygwin.sh
-If you are cross-compiling from Debian, then just run `make'.
+See `./configure --help' for more information.
-If you are cross-compiling using the mingw32 package provided by
-www.videolan.org, run `PATH=/usr/local/cross-tools/bin:$PATH make'.
-If you are compiling natively on Windoze, run `MAKE=gmake gmake'.
-(note that msys sometimes stops in the middle of the build process and
-complains about not being able to create .dep files. If this happens, just
-re-run the above command another time and it should work)
+Actually Compiling the VLC source
+=================================
-Building Win32 interface with bcc32 (Borland's compiler)
-========================================================
-(This stage is only necessary if you want to use the Win32 native interface.
- If you are happy with the GTK interface, then you can skip this section)
+Once configured, to build VLC, just run `make'.
-1) Compile vlc as usual.
+Once the compilation is done, you can either run VLC directly from the source
+tree or you can build self-contained VLC packages with the following
+'make' rules:
-2) From the plugin\win32 directory, use Borland C++ command-line tools
-as follows:
-bpr2mak intfwin.bpr -s \
- | sed 's#^LIBPATH = .*#&;$$(RELEASELIBPATH)# ; s#^USERDEFINES = .*#& -DWIN32 -DPLUGIN -DMODULE_NAME_IS_intfwin -DMODULE_NAME=intfwin#' \
- > intfwin.mak // Create a makefile from intfwin.bpr
-make -fintfwin // It's Borland's make utility !
+ make package-win-base
+ will create a subdirectory named vlc-x.x.x with all the binaries
+ 'stripped' (ie. without any debugging symbols).
-3) This should create a intfwin.so
-You can remove any other generated file.
+ make package-win32-zip
+ Same as above but will package the directory in a zip file.
+ make package-win32
+ Same as above but will also create an auto-installer package. You will need
+ to have NSIS installed in its default location for this to work.
-Well done, now you're ready to use vlc!
+Well done, now you're ready to use VLC!
=======================================
projects / vlc / blobdiff