Here you can download a GTK+ 2 bundle (and a few additional libraries) built with Visual Studio 2015. HexChat for Windows is built using this bundle.

This is the bundle built by us containing all the GTK+ binaries, headers and import libraries. If you just want to use GTK+ for your application and don't want to build it yourself, download this. You will also need the Visual C++ redistributable to be able to run applications that use this bundle.

These are the libraries in the bundle:

If you want to build the bundle from source yourself, we have a PowerShell script that will download the sources, apply some patches and run the build. It is largely based on Fan Chun-wei's Compiling the GTK+ (and Clutter) stack using Visual C++ 2008 and later.

1. Install the following build tools and dependencies:

   • Visual Studio 2015 Community or Visual C++ Build Tools 2015 - Any version of VS apart from 2015 is not supported.
   • Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for VS 2012 Update 4
   • Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for VS 2013
   • Windows Management Framework 4.0 - Not needed for Windows 8.1 and above
   • CMake 3.6.1
   • msys2
   • Python 2.7 (install to C:\gtk-build\python-2.7\Win32 or C:\gtk-build\python-2.7\x64)

2. Follow the instructions on the msys2 page to update the core packages.

3. Install needed packages in the msys2 shell

   pacman -S gzip nasm patch tar xz

4. Install the following build tools and dependencies:

   • Perl 5.20 x86 or x64 (extract to C:\gtk-build\perl-5.20 so you have C:\gtk-build\perl-5.20\Win32\bin\perl.exe or C:\gtk-build\perl-5.20\x64\bin\perl.exe)
   • msgfmt (extract to C:\gtk-build so you have C:\gtk-build\msgfmt\msgfmt.exe)

   Extract the files with 7-zip, or in the MSYS2 shell with the tar command, eg tar xf perl-5.20.0-x86.tar.xz

5. Clone this repository to C:\gtk-build\github\gtk-win32 It contains the build script, project files and patches.

6. Now you have to allow PowerShell scripts to be run on your system. Open a PowerShell prompt as Administrator and run the following command:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

7. Now start a new PowerShell window as a regular user. Go to the gtk-win32 directory and start building with the script. For example, to build the 32-bit bundle, run:

   C:\gtk-build\github\gtk-win32\build.ps1

   To build the 64-bit bundle instead, run:

   C:\gtk-build\github\gtk-win32\build.ps1 -Configuration x64

   The script has some parameters you can pass in. Run

   Get-Help -Full C:\gtk-build\github\gtk-win32\build.ps1

   to see the help for the parameters and examples.

8. When the script is done, your GTK+ stack will be found under C:\gtk-build\gtk. Enjoy!