Setup For Windows 11 desktop or Windows Server 2022/2025 development system as a Linux KVM virtual machine
On the Linux KVM host:
> sudo -i # cd /var/lib/libvirt/images # qemu-img create -f qcow2 win11_dev_system.qcow2 500G # qemu-img create -f qcow2 win11_dev_system_data_drive.qcow2 500G
# virt-manager
CPUs = 8 Memory = 16384 SATA disk = var/lib/libvirt/images/win11_dev_system.qcow2 NIC=e1000e
NOTE: Before building change BOOT from BIOS to UEFI
NOTE: For Window 11 TPM is required Add Hardware = TPM (default settings)
Start install from ISO image mounted to SATA CDROM The installation ISO images can be downloaded from: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2025
After the install completes setup your username and password on the Windows 11 VM.
Set the computer name: System->About->Rename this PC
Set up the automatic updates to download and install patches when Available. Control Panel->System->Windows Update Install latest patches and reboot.
For Windows 2025 server: To add services, programs and features go to Server Manager and click on Add roles and features. Server Manager->Dashboard->Add roles and features Role-based or feature-based installation
Check all the roles needed: Active Directory (all services except rights management) File and Storage Service (expand and install all other file services) Network Policy Print and Documentation Services Remote Desktop Services Volume Activation Services Windows Deployment Services
After the initial setup is complete shutdown the VM and add the second hard drive:
SATA disk = var/lib/libvirt/images/win11_dev_system_data_drive.qcow2
Unmount the ISO image from the SATA CDROM and start the Windows 11 VM.
System drive = C: Optical drive = D: Data drive = E:
Using a separate data drive for all git repos and build so the drive can be copied and used on other development VMs.
On the Window VM install the virtualization guest tools. The latest Virtio drivers can be downloaded from:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-virtio
Download and install the following:
virtio-win-guest-tools.exe
On the Windows VM install the following applications need for development work:
Emacs https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/ EMACS profile per user: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\.emacs
GIT https://git-scm.com/install/windows
Firefox https://www.firefox.com/en-US/
Chrome https://www.google.com/chrome/dr/download/
On the Windows VM if you need to add any additional ENV paths:
Search->Edit environment variables for your account User variables for username->Path->Edit->New
Or
Search->Edit the system environment variables System Properties->User Profiles->Environment Variables System Variables->Path->Edit->New
Microsoft Visual Studio Install
On the Windows 11 VM or 2025 server VM install visual studio, free version (VS Community 2026)
Reference links: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/ https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/free-developer-offers/
Download the Visual Studio 2026 Insiders installer from:
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/insiders/
Run the VS installer and select:
Desktop development with C++ Under installation details select all options
WinUI application development Under installation details select all options
After installation with the above options there will be 4 command prompts you can open with all the C/C++ environmental variables set:
%comspec% /k "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat" %comspec% /k "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsamd64_x86.bat" %comspec% /k "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars32.bat" %comspec% /k "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsx86_amd64.bat"
To test the installation:
In a Run dialog paste the vcvars64.bat command prompt to start a build environment:
Search->Run
%comspec% /k "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat"
C:\Windows\System32>mkdir c:\tmp C:\Windows\System32>cd \tmp
Create a test program for compiler testing:
C:\tmp>notepad testprog.c
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Test program\n");
return 0;
}
C:\tmp>cl testprog.c C:\tmp>testprog.exe
OpenSSL Build for Windows
For the OpenSSL build you will need to install Perl for Windows and NASM if you build OpenSSL with machine language optimizations.
To install Perl for Windows:
Download the latest portable version strawberry Perl:
https://github.com/StrawberryPerl/Perl-Dist-Strawberry/releases
Unzip the 64-bit portable package to C:\strawberry-perl
To setup the perl environment in a command prompt window run:
C:\strawberry-perl\portableshell.bat
Install NASM for Windows:
Download the latest release version:
https://www.nasm.us/pub/nasm/releasebuilds/2.16.03
Copy the binary EXE files to:
C:\nasm\bin
Add the NASM bin path to the path for your account:
Search->Edit environment variables for your account User variables for username->Path->Edit->New->C:\nasm\bin
For the OpenSSL build you will need to build the ZLIB compression library:
For all the build examples below this document will reference E:\3plibs\distrib for the location of source code download packages and reference E:\3plibs as the build location for 3rd party libs.
The examples use a command line version of unzip.exe to unpack the zip archives.
The default Windows build is 64-bit x64. The 32-bit x86 builds are only for legacy systems. Build each library in a new command prompt for the target you are building.
To build the 64-bit ZLIB from a Windows command prompt:
E: E:\>cd 3plibs E:\3plibs>cd distrib E:\3plibs\distrib>unzip -d e:\3plibs zlib131.zip E:\3plibs\distrib>cd e:\3plibs E:\3plibs>move zlib-1.3.1 zlib64-1.3.1 E:\3plibs>cd zlib64-1.3.1 E:\3plibs\zlib64-1.3.1>"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat" E:\3plibs\zlib64-1.3.1>nmake -f win32\Makefile.msc
For a 32-bit legacy build unpack a second copy to zlib32-1.3.1 and use vcvars32.bat instead of vcvars64.bat.
OpenSSL Version Requirements
When you build DataReel or your programs with OpenSSL on Windows, use only an OpenSSL 3.5.x LTS (long term support) release. Do not use OpenSSL 3.0 through 3.4 or a newer non-LTS release. When a new 3.5.x release is published, rebuild OpenSSL with it and rebuild the DataReel library and your programs. This document uses OpenSSL 3.5.9, the latest 3.5.x LTS release. The default DataReel SSL build uses the native Windows Schannel API and does not need OpenSSL.
Download the latest 3.5.x LTS release from:
https://github.com/openssl/openssl/releases https://openssl-library.org/source/
To build the 64-bit OpenSSL from a Windows command prompt:
E: E:\>cd e:\3plibs E:\3plibs>tar -xzf distrib\openssl-3.5.9.tar.gz E:\3plibs>move openssl-3.5.9 openssl64-openssl-3.5.9 E:\3plibs>cd openssl64-openssl-3.5.9 E:\3plibs\openssl64-openssl-3.5.9>"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat" E:\3plibs\openssl64-openssl-3.5.9>C:\strawberry-perl\portableshell.bat E:\3plibs\openssl64-openssl-3.5.9>perl Configure VC-WIN64A --prefix=e:\3plibs\openssl64 --openssldir=e:\3plibs\openssl64 --with-zlib-include=e:\3plibs\zlib64-1.3.1 --with-zlib-lib=e:\3plibs\zlib64-1.3.1 enable-fips no-shared E:\3plibs\openssl64-openssl-3.5.9>perl configdata.pm --dump E:\3plibs\openssl64-openssl-3.5.9>nmake E:\3plibs\openssl64-openssl-3.5.9>nmake test
All tests successful. Files=347, Tests=4214, 2135 wallclock secs ( 8.45 usr + 2.03 sys = 10.48 CPU) Result: PASS
E:\3plibs\openssl64-openssl-3.5.9>nmake install_sw install_ssldirs install_fips E:\3plibs\openssl64-openssl-3.5.9>e:\3plibs\openssl64\bin\openssl.exe version OpenSSL 3.5.9 29 Sep 2026 (Library: OpenSSL 3.5.9 29 Sep 2026)
To build the 32-bit OpenSSL for legacy systems, unpack a second copy to openssl32-openssl-3.5.9 and in a new command prompt use vcvars32.bat, VC-WIN32, zlib32-1.3.1 and --prefix=e:\3plibs\openssl32 --openssldir=e:\3plibs\openssl32:
E:\3plibs\openssl32-openssl-3.5.9>"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars32.bat" E:\3plibs\openssl32-openssl-3.5.9>C:\strawberry-perl\portableshell.bat E:\3plibs\openssl32-openssl-3.5.9>perl Configure VC-WIN32 --prefix=e:\3plibs\openssl32 --openssldir=e:\3plibs\openssl32 --with-zlib-include=e:\3plibs\zlib32-1.3.1 --with-zlib-lib=e:\3plibs\zlib32-1.3.1 enable-fips no-shared E:\3plibs\openssl32-openssl-3.5.9>nmake E:\3plibs\openssl32-openssl-3.5.9>nmake test E:\3plibs\openssl32-openssl-3.5.9>nmake install_sw install_ssldirs install_fips
NOTE: To build a debug version of OpenSSL run the perl configure script with debug-VC-WIN64A, or debug-VC-WIN32 for 32-bit builds.
For the cross platform GUI library we will be using wxWidgets.
For the wxWidgets build you will need to download the release you with to use from:
https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/releases
In this document we will be using version 3.2.4
E: E:\>cd 3plibs E:\3plibs>mkdir e:\3plibs\wxWidgets32-3.2.4 E:\3plibs>cd e:\3plibs\distrib E:\3plibs\distrib>unzip -d e:\3plibs\wxWidgets32-3.2.4 wxWidgets-3.2.4.zip E:\3plibs\distrib>cd e:\3plibs\wxWidgets32-3.2.4\build\msw E:\3plibs\wxWidgets32-3.2.4\build\msw>"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\18\Insiders\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars32.bat" E:\3plibs\wxWidgets32-3.2.4\build\msw>nmake -f makefile.vc BUILD=release SHARED=0 UNICODE=1
To test the build:
E:\3plibs\wxWidgets32-3.2.4\build\msw>cd ..\..\samples\minimal E:\3plibs\wxWidgets32-3.2.4\samples\minimal>nmake -f makefile.vc BUILD=release SHARED=0 UNICODE=1
NOTE: To build a debug version of wxWigets use the following options:
> nmake -f makefile.vc BUILD=debug SHARED=0 UNICODE=1