title: "Compiling and Debugging 4diac FORTE with MS Visual Studio" url: doc/installation/visualstudio.html ---

# Compiling and Debugging 4diac FORTE with MS Visual Studio

The following describes how to compile 4diac FORTE with win32-architecture using Visual Studio. In the installation tutorial (back) you find more details on building your own 4diac FORTE. Additionally, other tools are described there.

Important | If you are using a Visual Studio version older then 2010 you might need to extend it with a stdint.h file. See for example here.

## Building a MS Visual Studio Project for 4diac FORTE with CMake

In the installation tutorial, the steps on building a project with CMake are described in detail. To use Visual Studio, you need to however select the tool MS Visual Studio. The correct architecture is Win32.

1. Open the CMake-GUI.

2. Choose the source folder `FORTE_FOLDER_ROOT`.

3. Choose desired destination folder. We recommend `FORTE_FOLDER_ROOT/bin/win32`.

4. Press the Configure button and choose the version of Visual Studio that is used and native default compilers. Press the Finish button afterwards.

5. For the option FORTE_ARCHITECTURE, select Win32. Other modules and configurations options can be set following the tutorial step Build a project with CMake.

6. Press the Configure button, check red rows and repeat this until no row appears red. Afterwards, press the button Generate.

## Compile 4diac FORTE with Visual Studio

1. Open the generated 4diac FORTE project (.sln file) with Visual Studio in `FORTE_FOLDER_ROOT/bin/win32`. You can change from Debug to Release mode if you don’t want to debug.

2. Build 4diac FORTE afterwards by right-clicking on forte in the Solution Explorer window and then clicking Build. A file `forte.exe` should be generated in `FORTE_FOLDER_ROOT/bin/win32/src/Release`.

## Debugging

1. If you want to Debug using Visual Studio, select the Debug mode and set 4diac FORTE as the main project.

2. Finally, press F5 or click Debug → Start Debugging

## Where to go from here?

If you want to build a 4diac FORTE, here is a quick link back:

Install Eclipse 4diac

After you installed all required tools, it’s time to start using them. Take a look at the following page:

Step by step tutorial

If you want to go back to the Start Here page, we leave you here a fast access

Start Here page

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