Platform and Compiler Notes - Windows
This page contains information about the Windows platforms Qt is currently known to run on, with links to platform-specific notes. More information about the combinations of platforms and compilers supported by Qt can be found on the Supported Platforms page.
Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8
At the time Qt 5.1.0 was released, there were no known issues on these platforms.
Windows XP
Installation location
Installing Qt into a directory with spaces, e.g. C:\Program Files, may cause linker errors like the following:
c:\program.obj not found
Install Qt into a subdirectory without spaces to avoid this problem.
Possible GL conflict
There is a known issue with running Microsoft NetMeeting, Lotus SameTime and other applications that require screen grabbing while direct rendering is enabled. Other GL-applications may not work as expected, unless direct rendering is disabled.
GCC (MinGW-builds)
We have tested Qt with this compiler on Windows 7. The minimum version of MinGW-builds supported is GCC 4.7.2. MinGW-builds GCC 4.7.2 32 bit, rev 8 and later should be able to build Qt including QtWebKit.
Intel C++ Compiler (Windows, Altix)
Qt has been tested successfully with:
- Windows - Intel(R) C++ Compiler for 32-bit applications, Version 9.1.040.
- Altix - Intel(R) C++ Itanium(R) Compiler for Itanium(R)-based applications Version 8.1 Build 20050406 Package ID: l_cc_pc_8.1.030
Visual Studio (Windows)
We do most of our Windows development on Windows 7, using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 11 (mostly 64bit).
We recommend using Visual Studio 2010 or higher as it supports some C++11 features beneficial to performance and memory usage.
Qt works with all editions of Visual Studio.
In order to use Qt with the Visual Studio Express Editions you need to download and install the Windows SDK.
The Visual C++ Linker doesn't understand filenames with spaces (as in C:\Program files\Qt\) so you will have to move it to another place, or explicitly set the path yourself; for example:
QTDIR=C:\Progra~1\Qt
If you are experiencing strange problems with using special flags that modify the alignment of structure and union members (such as /Zp2) then you will need to recompile Qt with the flags set for the application as well.
Visual Studio 2010 should be updated to Service Pack 1. Otherwise, a problem when compiling Qt for 64-bit in release mode may occur (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2280741).