Instructions For Setting Up Build Environment For Audacity 2.3+ On Windows 7

1. MSVC 2017

Download and install Visual Studio Community 2017:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/install/install-visual-studio?view=vs-2017

a) You only need the "Desktop development with C++ " Workload

b) Be sure to include "Windows 8.1 SDK" and "Windows Universal CRT SDK" in your Individual Components

2. Git

Download and install Git for Windows:

https://git-scm.com/download/win

Also, install Git Extensions:

http://gitextensions.github.io -> Download and run the .msi installer.

3. wxWidgets

a) Using Git Extensions, clone wxWidgets source from the Audacity fork of the wxWidgets project to a convenient location on your PC:

https://github.com/audacity/wxWidgets/

b) Build wxWidgets:

i. Copy the file \include\wx\msw\setup0.h to \include\wx\msw\setup.h

ii. Set WXWIN to the appropriate directory where you installed wxWidgets.  This can be done in System Environment Variables: under "System variables" create a new variable setting WXWIN equal to the directory to which you earlier checked it out.  Reboot PC after setting this variable

iii. In MSVC 2017 open \wxWidgets\build\msw\wx_vc15.sln, and select "DLL Release – Win32" and "Build Solution"

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NOTE: If you are compiling Audacity to include ASIO support, instructions regarding ASIO are here:

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/asio_audio_interface.html

The download of ASIO and setting of its environment variable must be done before any steps below

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4. Audacity

a) Install Audacity from the official website:

https://www.audacityteam.org/

b) Clone Audacity from the Audacity GitHub project:

https://github.com/audacity/audacity/

Or download source from:

https://github.com/audacity/audacity/releases

c) In MSVC 2017 open \win\audacity.sln from the clone you just created, then choose "Release - Win32" and "Build Solution".  You can avoid some meaningless errors if you delete "Help" and "Locale" from the project modules before building

d) When done, copy AUDACITY.EXE from the following folder:

\audacity\win\..\release

Copy this file _over_ latest standard install as there are other files in standard install that need to be retained

e) You may also need to copy over new WX DLLs from your wxWidgets build \wxWidgets\lib\vc_dll:

wxbase311u_net_vc_custom.dll
wxbase311u_vc_custom.dll
wxbase311u_xml_vc_custom.dll
wxmsw311u_adv_vc_custom.dll
wxmsw311u_core_vc_custom.dll
wxmsw311u_core_vc_custom.dll
wxmsw311u_core_vc_custom.dll