# Where to start with CMake & Windows?

**URL:** <https://forum.graphviz.org/t/where-to-start-with-cmake-windows/2716>\
**Category:** Dev\
**Created:** [February 12, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/where-to-start-with-cmake-windows/2716 "2025-02-12T20:23:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![sprezzatura](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/graphviz/user_avatar/forum.graphviz.org/sprezzatura/32/1815_2.png) [@sprezzatura](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/sprezzatura)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/where-to-start-with-cmake-windows/2716/7 "2025-02-13T21:39:00Z")

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Thanks for your reply.

> [@magjac](#):
>
> building on Windows is surprisingly difficult

Well that’s encouraging 😁

The only reason I’m trying to compile the source is that I’ve got Graphviz linked into my app; sometimes it works (I can actually get a graph), and sometimes Graphviz is crashing. Since no one replied to my [post](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/gvlayout-crashing/2700), I figure I had to step into the code myself.

I downloaded ver. 12.0.0, the last one with a Visual Studio .SLN solution file. I can compile it, but it’s missing header files, and now I realize I have to download GTK and Cairo. I already have Qt. Talk about a rabbit hole 😜

This is a classic “[Yak shaving](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/388092/what-exactly-is-yak-shaving)” situation. I just want to use the binaries and not have to recompile it.

Can I just pay someone to figure out why it’s crashing?

BTW I downloaded the source as you recommended. I can see the `CMakeLists.txt` files. What argument(s) do I pass to `cmake`?

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