1. Open [`PowerEditor\visual.net\notepadPlus.sln`](https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/blob/master/PowerEditor/visual.net/notepadPlus.sln)
As mentioned above, you'll need `libScintilla.lib` and `libLexilla.lib` for the Notepad++ build. This is done automatically on building the whole solution. So normally you don't need to care about this.
Boost is taken from [boost 1.80.0](https://www.boost.org/users/history/version_1_80_0.html) and stripped down to the project needs available at [boost](https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/tree/master/boostregex/boost) in this repo.
If you have [MinGW-w64](https://www.mingw-w64.org/) installed, you can compile Notepad++ with GCC. Otherwise MinGW-w64 can be downloaded [here](https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/). You can also download some collection of tools which supports MinGW-w64, like [MSYS2](https://www.msys2.org/) or [WinLibs](https://winlibs.com/).
Building Notepad++ is regularly tested on a Windows system by using [MSYS2](https://www.msys2.org/) project. Current versions of tools used to building (such as GCC, Make or Bash) can be checked by looking at some logs from the finished building (for example in the [current-build page](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/donho/notepad-plus-plus)). Other versions may also work but are untested.
**Note:** Before building make sure that the system `PATH` environment variable contains `$MinGW-root$\bin` directory. Otherwise you have to set this directory yourself in Windows settings. You can also use a command like `set PATH=$MinGW-root$\bin;%PATH%` each time `cmd` is launched. But beware that if `PATH` contains several versions of MinGW-w64 GCC, only the first one will be usable.
1. Launch `cmd` and add `$MinGW-root$\bin` to `PATH` if necessary.
2.`cd` into `notepad-plus-plus\PowerEditor\gcc`.
3. Run `mingw32-make`.
4. The 32-bit or 64-bit `notepad++.exe` will be generated either in `bin.i686` or in `bin.x86_64` directory respectively, depending on the target CPU of the compiler — look for the full path to the resulting binary at the end of the build process.
- The directory containing `notepad++.exe` will also contain everything needed for Notepad++ to start.
- To have a debug build just add `DEBUG=1` to the `mingw32-make` invocation above. The output directory then will be suffixed with `-debug`.
- To see commands being executed add `VERBOSE=1` to the same command.
- When a project is built outside of the `PowerEditor/gcc` directory, for example when using `-f` option, then the entire project path must not contain any spaces. Additionally, the path to `makefile` of this project should be listed as first.
- When a project is built through MinGW-w64 with multilib support, a specific target can be forced by passing `TARGET_CPU` variable with `x86_64` or `i686` as value.
