FAQ: Windows

Using SDL

General

What is supported?

SDL 2.0.0 supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

SDL can be built with Visual C++, Cygwin, MinGW, and Dev-C++.

For the latest information see http://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/file/default/docs/README-platforms.md the page about Installation.

Windows 2000

I'm running Windows 2000 and I can't copy SDL.dll!

For some reason, archives created on Linux have the "Encrypted" property set when unpacked on Windows 2000. This can be unset by pushing Advanced from the General tab of the properties window and unchecking Encrypt contents check box. The files can then be copied normally.

Developing with SDL

Windows CE

Can I build SDL for Windows CE?

SDL 1.2 is not officially supported on Windows CE, but some people have successfully built and run SDL applications on Windows CE.

SDL 1.2.5 and newer contain project files and information on building SDL 1.2 for Windows CE. Take a look at the file README.WinCE in the source archive for more information.

There is no support for Windows CE in SDL 2.0.

Visual C++

How do I use SDL with Visual C++?

Read the file "VisualC.html" included with both the SDL Visual C++ development archive, and the SDL source archive.

When using Visual C++ I get "fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'windows.h': No such file or directory"

You need to install the platform SDK, as described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/usingpsdk/

When using Visual C++ I get link errors relating to MSVCRT.LIB or LIBC

SDL is dynamically linked with the multi-threaded version of the Microsoft Visual C runtime. You need to edit your project settings, go to the C++ language tab, change the listbox to "Code Generation" settings, and then change the runtime library to "Multi-threaded DLL". Make sure you do this with all projects that you link into your application.

When using Visual C++ 5, I get the following error message: SDL.lib : fatal error LNK1106: invalid file or disk full

This happens with Visual C++ 5, if you use the prebuilt SDL library and have not updated to the latest service pack.

Why can't I use Visual C++ debugger with SDL 1.2 applications?

You need to pass the SDL_INIT_NOPARACHUTE flag to your calls to SDL_Init() to make the msvc debugger work. Otherwise the debugger will be unable to trace exceptions, and other debugging features like run to cursor won't work.

Why does the Visual C++ debugger freeze at every breakpoint when debugging SDL apps?

The DirectX drivers have a system lock while you have video surfaces locked. To avoid this, you can set the video driver to GDI by setting the SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment variable to: windib. Since this changes video and mouse/keyboard input drivers, you'll see a difference in performance and features available, but you'll be able to debug your application more easily.

gcc

How do I use SDL with gcc on Windows?

You can build and use SDL with gcc natively using either Cygwin or MinGW, or you can build a gcc cross-compiler targeting Windows from another platform. Setting up these environments is documented at: http://www.libsdl.org/extras/win32/gcc.html Once the build environment is set up, you can build your applications as though you are on an Unix. See the Linux FAQ for more details on building applications in this environment.

Dev-C++

How do I use SDL with Dev-C++?

Try the Dev-C++ tutorial available at: http://cone3d.gamedev.net/cgi-bin/index.pl?page=tutorials/gfxsdl/tut1 (Archive). If you have problems, please contact the author of the tutorial.

There are also step by step instructions at: http://docs.deninet.com/sdl_on_dev_c.htm (Archive)

Choosing "console application" in the project parameters will result in generating a program that will *systematically* make Vista users crash.

Choose "gui application" instead of "console application" when compiling for Vista.

MinGW/MYSYS

How do I use SDL with MinGW/MYSYS?

See the SDL and MYSYS/MinGW Tutorial

Miscellaneous

I get "Undefined reference to 'SDL_main'" ...

Make sure that you are declaring main() as:

#include "SDL.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[])

You should be using main() instead of WinMain() even though you are creating a Windows application, because SDL provides a version of WinMain() which performs some SDL initialization before calling your main code. If for some reason you need to use WinMain(), take a look at the SDL source code in src/main/win32/SDL_main.c to see what kind of initialization you need to do in your WinMain() function so that SDL works properly.

I get "Undefined reference to 'WinMain@16'"

Under Visual C++, you need to link with SDL2main.lib. Under the gcc build environments including Dev-C++, you need to link with the output of "sdl-config --libs", which is usually: -lmingw32 -lSDL2main -lSDL2

I get undefined references to various SDL functions...

When you're compiling with gcc, you need to make sure the output of sdl-config follows your source file on the command line: gcc -o test test.c sdl-config --cflags --libs

If you're getting undefined references to functions in SDL_image or SDL_mixer, make sure you're actually linking with those libraries as well.

Why doesn't SDL_WM_ToggleFullScreen() work on Windows?

The semantics of SDL_WM_ToggleFullScreen() are that switching between fullscreen and windowed mode is transparent to the application. The display pixels pointer does not change, the display depth does not change, etc. This cannot be guaranteed on Windows. However, there is a simple method you can use to change between fullscreen and windowed mode:

flags ^= SDL_FULLSCREEN;
screen = SDL_SetVideoMode(..., flags);

How do I avoid creating stdout.txt and stderr.txt?

"I believe inside the Visual C++ project that comes with SDL there is a SDL_nostdio target you can build which does what you want(TM)."

"If you define "NO_STDIO_REDIRECT" and recompile SDL, I think it will fix the problem." (Answer courtesy of Bill Kendrick)