Building on Windows

MSVC (native)
MinGW cross-compile

Requirements

Visual Studio 2019 or later (any edition, including Build Tools)
CMake >= 3.13
Ninja (bundled with Visual Studio, or install separately)
A pre-built OpenSSL distribution for Windows (e.g. from Shining Light or vcpkg)

Opening a developer prompt

All CMake commands must be run inside a Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt, or from a standard cmd/PowerShell session that has already sourced vcvarsall.bat:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64

Build

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP.git C:\freerdp\src

Configure with CMake

cmake -GNinja ^
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ^
  -DWITH_VERBOSE_WINPR_ASSERT=OFF ^
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\freerdp\install ^
  -B C:\freerdp\build ^
  -S C:\freerdp\src

Compile and install

cmake --build C:\freerdp\build --target install

CI preload configuration

The repository ships ci/cmake-preloads/config-windows.txt with recommended Windows settings:

set(CMAKE_WINDOWS_VERSION "WIN7" CACHE STRING "windows build version")
set(BUILD_SHARED_LIBS OFF CACHE BOOL "build static linked executable")
set(CMAKE_MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY "MultiThreaded" CACHE STRING "MSVC runtime to use")
set(OPENSSL_USE_STATIC_LIBS ON CACHE BOOL "link OpenSSL static")
set(WITH_SERVER ON CACHE BOOL "build with server")
set(WITH_CLIENT_SDL ON CACHE BOOL "build with SDL client")
set(CHANNEL_URBDRC OFF CACHE BOOL "USB redirection")

Apply it with:

cmake -C C:\freerdp\src\ci\cmake-preloads\config-windows.txt ^
  -GNinja ^
  -B C:\freerdp\build ^
  -S C:\freerdp\src

cmake --build C:\freerdp\build

Notable Windows flags

Flag	Description
`BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF`	Produce a statically linked executable.
`OPENSSL_USE_STATIC_LIBS=ON`	Link OpenSSL statically.
`CMAKE_MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY=MultiThreaded`	Use the static MSVC runtime (`/MT`).
`WITH_WIN_CONSOLE=ON`	Attach a console window to the client executable.
`WITH_SHADOW=OFF`	Disable the shadow server (not supported on Windows).
`WITH_CLIENT_SDL=ON`	Build the SDL2 client.
`WITH_SDL_LINK_SHARED=OFF`	Link SDL2 statically.
`ZLIB_USE_STATIC_LIBS=ON`	Link zlib statically.

Overview

FreeRDP can be cross-compiled for Windows from a Linux host using llvm-mingw, which supports both msvcrt and ucrt runtimes.

MinGW builds are not actively maintained. The build may occasionally break. Pull requests to maintain MinGW support are welcome.

A maintained sample build script is located at scripts/mingw.sh in the repository and is periodically exercised by the CI workflow at .github/workflows/mingw.yml.A complete Docker-based build example for LLVM-MinGW is provided at docs/mingw-example/ in the repository.

Docker-based example build

The docs/mingw-example/ directory contains a Dockerfile and helper scripts that build all dependencies (zlib, OpenSSL, OpenH264, libusb, FAAC, FAAD2) and FreeRDP itself inside a Docker container.

Build for x86_64

cd docs/mingw-example
./build_x64.sh

Build for ARM64

cd docs/mingw-example
./build_arm64.sh

Build for x86 (32-bit)

cd docs/mingw-example
./build_ia32.sh

Each script sets TARGET_ARCH and calls _build.sh, which runs docker compose up to produce the Windows binaries.

Manual cross-compile with llvm-mingw

Install llvm-mingw

Download a pre-built release from github.com/mstorsjo/llvm-mingw and extract it, e.g. to /usr/local.

Configure with the toolchain file

A CMake toolchain file for each target triple is expected at docs/mingw-example/toolchain/cmake/<arch>-w64-mingw32-toolchain.cmake.

cmake -GNinja \
  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=docs/mingw-example/toolchain/cmake/x86_64-w64-mingw32-toolchain.cmake \
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/build \
  -DWITH_X11=OFF \
  -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -B build -S .

Build

cmake --build build -j $(nproc)
cmake --install build

Getting Started

Building from Source

Client Applications

Core Concepts

Server & Proxy

Guides

WinPR

Building on Windows

Requirements

Opening a developer prompt

Build

CI preload configuration

Notable Windows flags

Overview

Docker-based example build

Manual cross-compile with llvm-mingw

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Getting Started

Building from Source

Client Applications

Core Concepts

Server & Proxy

Guides

WinPR

​Requirements

​Opening a developer prompt

​Build

​CI preload configuration

​Notable Windows flags

​Overview

​Docker-based example build

​Manual cross-compile with llvm-mingw

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Requirements

Opening a developer prompt

Build

CI preload configuration

Notable Windows flags

Overview

Docker-based example build

Manual cross-compile with llvm-mingw