# Windows Guide needed
**URL:** https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323
**Category:** Question
**Created:** [April 25, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323 "2019-04-25T16:34:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@niko](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/niko)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/1 "2019-04-25T16:34:14Z")
has anyone got a recent build running on windows 10? A guide with download links to all external dependencies would be really helpful.
I would love to get started with pijul, but need to use windows on my dev machine.
---
### Author:  [@spacefrogg](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/spacefrogg)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2022, 1:20pm UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/2 "2022-03-16T13:20:35Z")
I would start with installing the latest version of Pijul from [crates.io](http://crates.io) with cargo.
Then, you should be able to clone the repository using pijul itself and go on from there.
---
### Author:  [@Dangthrimble](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/Dangthrimble)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 8:53am UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/3 "2022-04-05T08:53:09Z")
Yesterday I tried to build Pijul from source on Windows 10 using `$ cargo install pijul --version "~1.0.0-beta"` and got the following error:
```auto
It looks like you're compiling for MSVC but we couldn't detect an OpenSSL installation. If there isn't one installed then you can try the rust-openssl README for more information about how to download precompiled binaries of OpenSSL:
https://github.com/sfackler/rust-openssl#windows
```
However, the rust-openssl README makes no mention of Windows. After some digging around, I downloaded Win64 OpenSSL v3.0.2 from [Binaries - OpenSSLWiki](https://wiki.openssl.org/index.php/Binaries) and added the `OPENSSL_DIR` system environment variable, pointing to `C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-Win64`
Everything appeared to compile successfully, but then I got the following error:
```auto
error: linking with `link.exe` failed: exit code: 1181
|
= note: "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\BuildTools\\VC\\Tools\\MSVC\\14.28.29333\\bin\\HostX64\\x64\\link.exe" ... "/NATVIS:C:\\Users\\jonat\\.rustup\\toolchains\\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\\lib\\rustlib\\etc\\libstd.natvis"
= note: LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file 'zstd.lib'
error: failed to compile `pijul v1.0.0-beta`, intermediate artifacts can be found at `C:\Users\jonat\AppData\Local\Temp\cargo-installQfz3uA`
Caused by:
could not compile `pijul` due to previous error
```
Can anyone advise what to do next?
---
### Author:  [@pmeunier](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/pmeunier)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 9:29am UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/4 "2022-04-05T09:29:44Z")
Maybe download the binaries: [Release 1.0.0-beta · boringcactus/pijul-windows-builds · GitHub](https://github.com/boringcactus/pijul-windows-builds/releases/tag/1.0.0-beta)
They don’t have the latest version of everything, but they do work.
Edit: that GitHub repository has a script to compile Pijul on Windows.
---
### Author:  [@Dangthrimble](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/Dangthrimble)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 11:06am UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/5 "2022-04-05T11:06:19Z")
If I download them from GitHub and they build successfully, will I then be able to download subsequent updates from Pijul?
---
### Author:  [@pmeunier](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/pmeunier)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 11:20am UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/6 "2022-04-05T11:20:31Z")
Yes. To clarify (because I don’t know what you mean by “them”), that repository is just a build script to install dependencies.
If you use that, and then compile Pijul, you will be able to use the compiled Pijul.
---
### Author:  [@Dangthrimble](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/Dangthrimble)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 4:18pm UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/7 "2022-04-05T16:18:42Z")
Apologies, “them” as in the binaries.
Since a Windows Guide is needed, would it be worth my while deleting all I have done to date, and start again using the binaries, keeping a note of the actions I take to get a working copy of Pijul?
---
### Author:  [@Dangthrimble](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/Dangthrimble)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2022, 8:03am UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/8 "2022-04-09T08:03:25Z")
So the README on GitHub just gives you a link to “download the latest release”. Following that link takes you to a page that offers a pijul executable, a Zip archive, and a GNU Zip archive of a tar file. No instructions at all. Presumably, only one of the archives is needed, but do I also need the executable? Is it a full Pijul build, or just something that uses the YAML files in the archive? Now I can see why a Windows Guide is needed!
---
### Author:  [@Dangthrimble](https://discourse.pijul.org/u/Dangthrimble)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2022, 10:00am UTC](https://discourse.pijul.org/t/windows-guide-needed/323/9 "2022-04-09T10:00:55Z")
Since I got as far as a link error after downloading OpenSSL, wouldn’t it be easier to fix the bug for Windows in the standard build process rather than relying on a GitHub-hosted script? It would be good to be able to bootstrap Pijul for Windows without recourse to alternative version control software.