Any Windows on Arm computer which has the required tools installed can be used for this Learning Path.
Follow the links to install the required tools.
There is currently no Arm version of Strawberry Perl. Install the 32-bit x86 version.
You can use Clang to build a CMake application for Windows on Arm. The example application is PuTTY, an open-source SSH and telnet client.
To compile PuTTY on a Windows on Arm device, follow the steps outlined below:
Windows PowerShell
on your Windows on Arm computer.Run the next two steps at the PowerShell command prompt.
mkdir C:\putty
cd C:\putty
wget https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/putty-src.zip -o putty-src.zip
Expand-Archive putty-src.zip
Start Microsoft Visual Studio.
Select the Open a Local folder
option.
Browse and select the putty source directory C:\putty\putty-src
which contains the CmakeLists.txt
file.
The Solution Explorer
pane will appear on the right side of Visual Studio and will display the folder structure and files in the putty source directory.
Don’t be alarmed when Visual Studio appears to start building. PuTTY uses the CMake build system and Visual Studio starts generating the CMake cache when the project is opened.
Wait for Visual Studio to complete processing for the default configuration, which is x64-Debug
.
When Visual Studio processing is complete, you can change the configuration to build for Arm64 instead.
To change the configuration, right click on the CMakeLists.txt
file in the Solution Explorer
pane.
Select CMake settings for putty
.
This opens up the CMake Settings
dialog.
You can now add a new configuration to build PuTTY for Arm. This configuration uses the LLVM toolchain installed by the Visual Studio Installer.
In CMake Settings
, click on +
sign to Add a New Configuration
and select arm64-Clang-Debug
.
With the arm64-Clang-Debug
configuration selected, change the Toolset
from the drop-down menu to clang_cl_arm64
.
Scroll down and find CMake variables and Cache
and click on Save and generate CMakeCache to load variables
.
This will change the configuration on the top of Visual Studio to arm64-Clang-Debug
On the top toolbar open the drop down and click arm64-Clang-Debug
. Then select Project -> Configure Cache
. This will trigger Visual Studio to generate the CMakeCache.txt
file for your new arm64-Clang-Debug
configuration.
In the output window, you will see messages similar to:
1> CMake generation started for configuration: 'arm64-Clang-Debug'.
1> Environment settings:
1> CXXFLAGS=--target=arm64-pc-windows-msvc -fdiagnostics-absolute-paths
1> CFLAGS=--target=arm64-pc-windows-msvc -fdiagnostics-absolute-paths
1> Command line: "C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe" /c "%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\chcp.com 65001 >NUL && "C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO\2022\COMMUNITY\COMMON7\IDE\COMMONEXTENSIONS\MICROSOFT\CMAKE\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING="Debug" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH="C:\putty\putty-src\out\install\arm64-Clang-Debug" -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER:FILEPATH="C:/PROGRAM FILES/MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO/2022/COMMUNITY/VC/Tools/Llvm/bin/clang-cl.exe" -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM="C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO\2022\COMMUNITY\COMMON7\IDE\COMMONEXTENSIONS\MICROSOFT\CMAKE\Ninja\ninja.exe" "C:\putty\putty-src" 2>&1"
1> Working directory: C:\putty\putty-src\out\build\arm64-Clang-Debug
1> [CMake] -- The C compiler identification is Clang 15.0.1 with MSVC-like command-line
1> [CMake] -- Detecting C compiler ABI info
1> [CMake] -- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
From these messages, you can see that the Compiler being used to build the PuTTY application is Clang 15.0.1.
This is the version of the LLVM toolchain installed with Visual Studio.
windows.cmake
fileIn Solutions Explorer
browse to the cmake
-> platforms
directory and open the windows.cmake
file.
Search for /C1252
in this file and replace with -c1252
After the change, it should look like:
set(CMAKE_RC_FLAGS "${CMAKE_RC_FLAGS} /nologo -c1252")
The cmake helper tool cmcldeps.exe
has an issue understanding the entire command-line syntax with “/” used to to pass a command-line option. You can use “-” instead to pass the command line option.
Select Build->Build-All
When the build process completes, there will be a new executable putty.exe
in your configuration build folder C:\putty\putty-src\out\build\arm64-Clang-Debug
This is the PuTTY application that you natively compiled on your Windows on Arm machine with the LLVM toolchain.
Double-click it to run and check that it works on your Windows on Arm device.
If you right click on the PuTTY application and select Properties
, on the Compatibility
tab you will see the Windows on Arm
emulation settings are disabled. This shows the application was natively built for Windows on Arm.
If you would like to build with a different version of LLVM, you will need to make a change in the CMake settings.
At the time of writing, the latest version with Windows on Arm support is LLVM 18.1.8.
Ensure you have downloaded and installed LLVM 18.1.8
On CMake Settings
page in Visual Studio, select the Show advanced variables
checkbox under CMake variables and cache
.
Change the value of CMAKE_C_COMPILER
to point to the location where you have installed LLVM 18.1.8.
For example: C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin\clang-cl.exe
. Click on the Save to JSON
checkbox next to this field and Save
.
Saving this change will automatically trigger the CMake cache variables to be re-generated and loaded.
You should see output similar to what is shown below:
1> [CMake] -- The C compiler identification is Clang 18.1.8 with MSVC-like command-line
1> [CMake] -- Detecting C compiler ABI info
1> [CMake] -- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
The Clang version is now 18.1.8.