Windows Compilation

Last updated: October 02, 2023

Linux Guide

The purpose of this document is to:

  1. Walk users through how to build TSWoW from source

  2. Document important details and common issues

Prerequisites

All further dependencies are automatically installed by tswow.

Installation

When building TSWoW from source, we are concerned about three directories:

  • The source directory is the root directory containing all source code used to build TSWoW.

  • The build directory contains all intermediate files and build configurations

  • The install directory is where we install TSWoW

The source, build and install directories should all be separate. Do not place any of them inside any of the others. The recommended setup is to have a tswow-root containing all three folders.

  1. Run the following command (optionally in a new empty folder): git clone https://github.com/tswow/tswow.git --recurse

    • This will create the source directory, called “tswow”.

    • This download is expected to take some time.

  2. Copy source/build.default.conf to source/build.conf and open it. Here you can configure where tswow should place build and install directories.

    • Do not set install to point at your normal TSWoW installation unless you know what you’re doing, it will frequently flush out all your settings and modules!

  3. In the source directory, run the command npm i

  4. In the source directory, run the command npm run build-interactive (to build everything without an interactive prompt, use npm run build).

  5. You should now have entered the main TSWoW build program. You can now build any components you want

    • All TypeScript for TSWoW and the transpiler is compiled automatically as long as the build program is running

    • We currently have a bug where the prompt doesn’t allow you to enter anything. Restarting the build script seems to fix this for now.

  6. To get a fully working TSWoW installation, you can run the build full command, which will compile TrinityCore and all other components necessary.

    • To build only TrinityCore, you can use the command build trinitycore-relwithdebinfo

  7. You should now be able to start TSWoW from the new installation folder.

Known Issues

Incorrect / Broken crashlogs

This is an issue we’ve identified to happen when having both visual studio 2022 and visual studio 2019 installed alongside each others, despite all build scripts specifically selecting vs2022.

The only fix we’ve been able to identify is uninstalling visual studio 2019.

CMake or node not finding Visual Studio after upgrading to 2022

Causes symptoms like this:

npm ERR! gyp ERR! find VS msvs_version not set from command line or npm config
npm ERR! gyp ERR! find VS VCINSTALLDIR not set, not running in VS Command Prompt
npm ERR! gyp ERR! find VS unknown version "undefined" found at "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community"
npm ERR! gyp ERR! find VS could not find a version of Visual Studio 2017 or newer to use
npm ERR! gyp ERR! find VS looking for Visual Studio 2015
npm ERR! gyp ERR! find VS - not found
npm ERR! gyp ERR! find VS not looking for VS2013 as it is only supported up to Node.js 8

or this:

CMake Error:
  Generator
    
    Visual Studio 17 2022
  could not find any instance of Visual studio.

The only way we’ve been able to fix these issues have been to:

  • Reinstall your system node.js entirely (for the gyp error)
  • Reinstall visual studio 2022 after uninstalling visual studio 2019
  • Remove tswow-build/TrinityCore and restart build script

Release build install directory

build release doesn’t work with a normal install directory. To build a release, you must run turn off the build script, change the install directory to an empty/non-existing directory in source/build.conf and start the build script again. - This new directory can not be open in VSCodium/VSCode.

Missing Windows sdk errors (MSB8036)

  • This issue might be related to building on Windows 7 or having multiple instances of Visual Studio installed.
  • If you have this issue, please let us know and what your operating system / visual studio versions you have installed.

Some users have reported getting issues when building TrinityCore that looks similar to this in the log:

CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:18 (project):
  Failed to run MSBuild command:

    C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/Community/MSBuild/Current/Bin/MSBuild.exe

  to get the value of VCTargetsPath:

    Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.11.2+f32259642 for .NET Framework
    Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    Build started 1/29/2022 3:09:38 PM.
    Project "D:\WowDev\Tools\TSWoW\tswow-build\TrinityCore\CMakeFiles\3.18.3\VCTargetsPath.vcxproj" on node 1 (default targets).
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Microsoft\VC\v160\Microsoft.Cpp.WindowsSDK.targets(46,5): error MSB8036: The Windows S
DK version 10.0.19041.0 was not found. Install the required version of Windows SDK or change the SDK version in the project property pages or by right-clicking
the solution and selecting "Retarget solution". [D:\WowDev\Tools\TSWoW\tswow-build\TrinityCore\CMakeFiles\3.18.3\VCTargetsPath.vcxproj]
    Done Building Project "D:\WowDev\Tools\TSWoW\tswow-build\TrinityCore\CMakeFiles\3.18.3\VCTargetsPath.vcxproj" (default targets) -- FAILED.

    Build FAILED.

Note the windows sdk version that it requests (10.0.19041.0 in the above example). We managed to get this to work by editing the file C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\DesignTime\CommonConfiguration\Neutral\UAP\<windows-sdk-version>\UAP.props (replacing <windows-sdk-version> with the version from your error log) and commenting out the line starting with <WindowsSdkDir>:

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

  <PropertyGroup>
     <!-- Force WindowsSdkDir to always be a parent to this props file -->
<!--     <WindowsSdkDir>$([MSBUILD]::GetDirectoryNameOfFileAbove('$(MSBUILDTHISFILEDIRECTORY)', 'sdkmanifest.xml'))</WindowsSdkDir> -->
...
  </PropertyGroup>

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