Set up of Toolchain for Windows
*******************************

Step 1: Quick Steps
===================

Windows doesn't have a built-in "make" environment, so as well as installing the toolchain you will need a GNU-compatible environment. We use the MSYS2_ environment to provide this. You don't need to use this environment all the time (you can use Eclipse_ or some other front-end), but it runs behind the scenes.

The quick setup is to download the Windows all-in-one toolchain & MSYS zip file from dl.espressif.com:

https://dl.espressif.com/dl/esp32_win32_msys2_environment_and_toolchain-20170321.zip

Unzip the zip file to ``C:\`` (or some other location, but this guide assumes ``C:\``) and it will create an "msys32" directory with a pre-prepared environment.

Alternative Step 1: Configure toolchain & environment from scratch
==================================================================

Rather than use the pre-prepared environment, you can :doc:`alternatively follow this guide to set up the MSYS2 environment from scratch <windows-setup-scratch>`.

Another Alternative Step 1: Just download a toolchain
=====================================================

If you already have an MSYS2 install or want to do things differently, you can download just the toolchain here:

https://dl.espressif.com/dl/xtensa-esp32-elf-win32-1.22.0-61-gab8375a-5.2.0.zip

**If you followed one of the above options for Step 1, you already have the toolchain and you won't need this download.**

**Important**: Just having this toolchain is *not enough* to use ESP-IDF on Windows. You will need GNU make, bash, and sed at minimum. The above environments provide all this, plus a host compiler (required for menuconfig support).

Step 2: Getting the esp-idf repository from github
==================================================

Open an MSYS2 terminal window by running ``C:\msys32\mingw32.exe``. The environment in this window is a bash shell.

Change to the directory you want to clone the SDK into by typing a command like this one: ``cd "C:/path/to/dir"`` (note the forward-slashes in the path). Then type ``git clone --recursive https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf.git``

If you'd rather use a Windows UI tool to manage your git repositories, this is also possible. A wide range are available.

*NOTE*: While cloning submodules, the ``git clone`` command may print some output starting ``': not a valid identifier...``. This is a `known issue`_ but the git clone still succeeds without any problems.

Step 3: Starting a project
==========================

ESP-IDF by itself does not build a binary to run on the ESP32. The binary "app" comes from a project in a different directory. Multiple projects can share the same ESP-IDF directory on your computer.

The easiest way to start a project is to download the Getting Started project from github_.

The process is the same as for checking out the ESP-IDF from github. Change to the parent directory and run ``git clone https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf-template.git``.

**IMPORTANT:** The esp-idf build system does not support spaces in paths to esp-idf or to projects.

You can also find a range of example projects under the "examples" directory in IDF. These example project directories can be copied to outside IDF in order to begin your own projects.


Step 4: Configuring the project
===============================

Open an MSYS2 terminal window by running ``C:\msys32\msys2_shell.cmd``. The environment in this window is a bash shell.

Type a command like this to set the path to ESP-IDF directory: ``export IDF_PATH="C:/path/to/esp-idf"`` (note the forward-slashes not back-slashes for the path). If you don't want to run this command every time you open an MSYS2 window, create a new file in ``C:/msys32/etc/profile.d/`` and paste this line in - then it will be run each time you open an MYS2 terminal.

Use ``cd`` to change to the project directory (not the ESP-IDF directory.) Type ``make menuconfig`` to configure your project, then ``make`` to build it, ``make clean`` to remove built files, and ``make flash`` to flash (use the menuconfig to set the serial port for flashing.)

If you'd like to use the Eclipse IDE instead of running ``make``, check out the Eclipse setup guide in this directory.


.. _Eclipse: eclipse-setup.rst
.. _MSYS2: https://msys2.github.io/
.. _github: https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf-template
.. _known issue: https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/issues/11