Platform Details: Windows

Although Native Client modules are platform independent, the instructions for installing and building Native Client differ a bit between platforms. This page has details about the Windows environment.

For instructions on installing and using Native Client, see Getting Started. That page and others, such as Building Native Client, link to this page as needed.

Contents:

Tested configurations

Native Client has been tested with the following Windows configurations:

Support for Internet Explorer is not available at this time.

Note: Native Client does not currently support 64-bit Windows.

Running on Windows

Getting Python

You can download Python for free. See http://www.python.org/download/ for details.

[PENDING: Running gclient for the first time downloaded/installed Python and Subversion, even though I already had them. We should mention/acknowledge this.]

Checking the Python path

The path to python must have no spaces. You can use the where command to see the path:

C:\>where python
C:\Python24\python.exe

Avoiding Cygwin Python

If you have Cygwin, make sure your python command is from the standard Python distribution, not from Cygwin. You can test using the following command:

python -c "import sys; print sys.platform"

If the output is cygwin, then you're using the Cygwin version of Python and need to find the standard version. Once you have the standard version, put its directory at the front of your PATH:

set PATH=c:\python_install_dir;%PATH%

Vista: Installing when UAC is enabled

If User Account Control (UAC) is enabled, you can't use SCons to install the plug-in on Vista. Instead, you need to copy three files into C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins:

Developing on Windows

You need Visual Studio 2005 (8.0) and possibly Cygwin to build Native Client on Windows. Cygwin is required only if you need to run make — for example, if you need to build the toolchain.

Be sure to set up your Visual Studio environment correctly. The easiest way is to use the Visual Studio shell: Tools > Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt. Or use the shell of your choice, running a command such as c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\vcvarsall.bat to set the environment variables.

Note: If you have Cygwin, don't use cygwin.bat. Use the xterm shell window instead.

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