-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 this is the letter for your dvdrom drive).
-Building VideoLAN Client from the source code
-=============================================
+Building VLC from the source code
+=================================
-If you want to do the tricky job of building vlc from sources, you can do it
-in several ways:
+If you want to build VLC from sources, you can do it in several 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...)
+UNSUPPORTED METHODS
+-------------------
- natively on Windows, using cygwin (www.cygwin.com) with or without the
- unix emulation layer.
+ 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
+
+- natively on Windows, using Microsoft Visual Studio. This will not work.
-- or on Linux, using the mingw32 cross-compiler
-Getting the right tools
-=======================
+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 linux cross-compiler version of mingw32.
-(for Debian GNU/Linux users, there is a mingw32 package)
-
-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 with MSYS+MINGW:
-You will need to download and install the latest MSYS (version 1.0.7 as
-of now) and MINGW.
-The installation is really easy. Begin with the MSYS auto-installer and once
-this is done, extract MINGW into c:\msys\1.0\mingw. You also have to remember
-to remove the make utility included with MINGW as it conflicts with the one
-from MSYS (just rename or remove c:\msys\1.0\mingw\bin\make.exe).
-
-http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml
-http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mingw/MSYS-1.0.7-i686-2.exe
-http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mingw/MinGW-1.1.tar.gz
-
-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)
-
-- compiling natively on Windoze with cygwin:
-You will need to download and run the setup.exe app from cygwin's web site
-(www.cygwin.com).
-I'm personnaly running the experimental distribution (and gcc-3.2) with the
-exception of the autoconf tool for which I'm using the autoconf-devel-2.52-4
-package (I had problems with 2.53a-1). You will need to make sure you install
-at least the gcc-mingw, mingw-runtime and w32api packages.
-
-Also note that currently, even when using the -mno-cygwin option, the final
-executable requires cygwin1.dll even if none of the objects linked to form the
-executable does depend on cygwin1.dll itself. I don't know yet why the linker
-plays this trick...
-
-
-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.
-
-- compiling natively on Windoze with cygwin:
-You will need to download and install cygwin (www.cygwin.com).
-
-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)
+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++
+
+For MingW and Cygwin, please refer to our Wiki:
+- http://wiki.videolan.org/Win32CompileMSYS
+- http://wiki.videolan.org/Win32CompileCygwin
+
+
+Getting the additional libraries
+=================================
+
+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.
+
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.
+
+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 this:
+
+ sh extras/package/win32/configure-mingw.sh
+
+
+If you are compiling with MSYS/MINGW, then you can use this:
+
+ sh extras/package/win32/configure-msys.sh
+
+
+If you are using cygwin, you should build VLC without the POSIX emulation layer.
+Use this:
+
+ sh extras/package/win32/configure-cygwin.sh
See `./configure --help' for more information.
-If you are cross-compiling from Debian, you can use something
-along those lines:
-
- ./bootstrap; \
- CC=i586-mingw32msvc-gcc \
- ./configure --host=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 \
- --with-dvdcss-tree=../libdvdcss-win
-
-If you are cross-compiling using the mingw32 package provided by
-www.videolan.org, you have to use something along those lines:
-
- ./bootstrap; \
- CC=i586-mingw32msvc-gcc \
- PATH=/usr/local/cross-tools/bin:$PATH \
- ./configure --host=i586-mingw32msvc --build=i386-linux \
- --with-gtk-config-path=/usr/local/gtk-win32/bin \
- --with-sdl-config-path=/usr/local/SDL-1.2.3-win32/i386-mingw32msvc/bin \
- --with-directx=/usr/local/dxheaders \
- --with-dvdcss-tree=../libdvdcss-win
-
-If you are compiling natively on Windoze, then you can use something
-along those lines:
- ./bootstrap; \
- ./configure \
- --with-gtk-config-path=/c/dev/gtk-win32/bin \
- --with-sdl-config-path=/c/dev/SDL-1.2.3-win32/i386-mingw32msvc/bin \
- --with-directx=/c/dev/dxheaders \
- --with-dvdcss-tree=../libdvdcss-win
-
-If you are using cygwin, you can build vlc with or without the unix emulation
-layer (without is usually better). To build without the emulaion layer, use
-something like this:
- ./bootstrap; \
- CC="gcc -mno-cygwin" \
- ./configure \
- --with-gtk-config-path=/cygdrive/c/dev/gtk-win32/bin \
- --with-sdl-config-path=/cygdrive/c/dev/SDL-1.2.3-win32/i386-mingw32msvc/bin \
- --with-directx=/cygdrive/c/dev/dxheaders \
- --with-dvdcss-tree=../libdvdcss-win
-If you want to use the emulation layer, then just omit the CC="gcc -mno-cygwin"
-line.
-
-Note: when using the --with-dvdcss-tree you need to compile the libdvdcss tree
-beforehand.
-
-Building VideoLAN Client
-========================
-
-Have a look at the generated Makefile.opts file, you may want to choose
-which modules will be compiled as plugins, and which ones will remain in
-the core application. The configure script tries to guess for you.
-
-Once configured, to build vlc you have to:
-
-If you are cross-compiling from Debian or compiling natively on Windoze,
-then just run `make'.
-
-If you are cross-compiling using the mingw32 package provided by
-www.videolan.org, run `PATH=/usr/local/cross-tools/bin:$PATH make'.
-
-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)
-
-1) Compile vlc as usual.
-
-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 -D__PLUGIN__ -DMODULE_NAME_IS_intfwin -DMODULE_NAME=intfwin#' \
- > intfwin.mak // Create a makefile from intfwin.bpr
-make -fintfwin // It's Borland's make utility !
-
-3) This should create a intfwin.so
-You can remove any other generated file.
-
-
-Well done, now you're ready to use vlc!
+
+Actually Compiling the VLC source
+=================================
+
+Once configured, to build VLC, just run `make'.
+
+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:
+
+ make package-win-base
+ will create a subdirectory named vlc-x.x.x with all the binaries
+ 'stripped' (ie. without any debugging symbols).
+
+ 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!
=======================================
projects / vlc / blobdiff