Windows Setup Guide

October 23, 2025 · View on GitHub

This guide provides instructions for setting up the development environment for the futr nostr client on Windows.

The easiest way to get Windows binaries is through our automated CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions. No local setup required!

Continuous Builds

  • Automatic: Every commit to master branch triggers a build
  • Download: Available at GitHub Releases under "🚧 Development Build (Continuous)"
  • Status: Check build status in the Actions tab
  • Use Case: Testing latest features and bug fixes

Stable Releases

  • Automatic: Triggered when you push a version tag (e.g., git tag v1.0.0 && git push origin v1.0.0)
  • Download: Available at GitHub Releases as stable releases
  • Use Case: Production use

The automated builds use:

  • GHC 9.6.7
  • Cabal 3.10.3.0
  • MSYS2 MINGW64 environment
  • Qt5 with all required modules
  • Inno Setup for Windows installer creation

Manual Development Setup

When to use manual setup:

  • You want to modify the code and test changes locally
  • You need to debug build issues
  • You want to contribute to the project
  • You prefer building from source

If you just want to use the application, download the automated builds above instead.

Prerequisites

Windows Defender + Antivirus Software

These affect the build time significantly, even on modern hardware. You should consider making exceptions for specific build directories. Here is a PowerShell script that does most of that on Windows Defender for you, adjust paths accordingly.

(Run as administrator)

$ghcup = "C:\ghcup"
$cabalStore = "$env:APPDATA\cabal"
$ghcLocal = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\ghc"
$projectDirs = @(
    "C:\projects\futr",
    "C:\projects\HsQML",
    "C:\projects\libsecp256k1"
)

# Add static exclusions
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath $ghcup
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath $cabalStore
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath $ghcLocal

# Add project-specific exclusions
foreach ($dir in $projectDirs) {
    Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath $dir
    Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath (Join-Path $dir "dist-newstyle")
}

Write-Output "Exclusions added successfully."

Installation Steps

1. Install GHC + Cabal

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force;[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; try { Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock ([ScriptBlock]::Create((Invoke-WebRequest https://www.haskell.org/ghcup/sh/bootstrap-haskell.ps1 -UseBasicParsing))) -ArgumentList $true } catch { Write-Error $_ }
ghcup install ghc 9.6.7
ghcup install cabal 3.10.3.0
ghcup set ghc 9.6.7
ghcup set cabal 3.10.3.0

2. Start the MSYS2 MINGW64 shell

All following commands are from the MSYS2 MINGW64 shell!

Note: We use MSYS2 MINGW64 environment for better compatibility and performance. This matches our automated CI/CD setup.

3. Install dependencies (Qt5, LMDB, build tools)

pacman -Syu --noconfirm
pacman -S --needed --noconfirm git mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-make mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-base mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-declarative mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-graphicaleffects mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-imageformats mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-multimedia mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-quickcontrols2 mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-svg mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-tools mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-translations mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5-winextras mingw-w64-x86_64-openssl mingw-w64-x86_64-angleproject mingw-w64-x86_64-lmdb mingw-w64-x86_64-libunwind mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib mingw-w64-x86_64-libwebp mingw-w64-x86_64-libjpeg-turbo mingw-w64-x86_64-giflib mingw-w64-x86_64-libwinpthread autoconf autogen automake libtool make

4. Setup environment variables

echo 'export PATH=/usr/bin:/mingw64/bin:/c/tools/ghc-9.6.7/bin:/c/ghcup/bin:$PATH' > ~/setup-env.sh
echo 'export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=C:/msys64/mingw64/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH' >> ~/setup-env.sh

5. Clone HsQML dependency

Clone HsQML parallel to your futr directory:

# Navigate to your projects directory
cd /c/projects
# Clone HsQML dependency
git clone https://github.com/prolic/HsQML

Your directory structure should be similar to this:

C:\projects\futr
C:\projects\HsQML

6. Build secp256k1

source ~/setup-env.sh
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1 && \
    cd secp256k1 && \
    git checkout v0.5.1 && \
    ./autogen.sh && \
    ./configure --prefix=/mingw64 --enable-module-schnorrsig --enable-module-extrakeys --enable-module-ecdh --enable-experimental --enable-module-recovery && \
    make && \
    make install && \
    cd ..

7. Build the project

cd futr
source ~/setup-env.sh
cabal build --project-file=cabal.project.windows

8. Run the application locally

source ~/setup-env.sh
cabal run --project-file=cabal.project.windows

Building Windows Installer

Prerequisites

Download and install Inno Setup

Steps

  1. Deploy Qt with windeployqt
source ~/setup-env.sh
windeployqt.exe dist-newstyle/build/x86_64-windows/ghc-9.6.7/futr-*/build/futr/futr.exe --qmldir=resources/qml
  1. Copy additional dependencies
bash ./platform/windows/copy-dlls.sh
  1. Clean up temporary build artifacts
rm -rf dist-newstyle/build/x86_64-windows/ghc-9.6.7/futr-*/build/futr/futr-tmp
  1. Create installer binary
/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86_64\)/Inno\ Setup\ 6\ISCC.exe platform/windows/innosetup.iss

Troubleshooting

pkg-config issues

If you encounter pkg-config errors, verify that the environment variables are set correctly:

source ~/setup-env.sh
pkg-config --libs libsecp256k1
pkg-config --libs lmdb
pkg-config --cflags libsecp256k1
pkg-config --cflags lmdb

All four commands should return library paths / cflags without errors.

Build failures

Make sure you're using the correct project file:

cabal build --project-file=cabal.project.windows

Path issues

Ensure the MSYS2 environment variables are loaded in every shell session:

source ~/setup-env.sh