From ce3a3fe131eab82841bed3b8a91d27488ac38f87 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Devin Kees <6895754+djkees@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2026 10:37:46 -0600
Subject: [PATCH] Link Windows contributors to the existing Windows setup docs
 (#164)

* Link Windows contributors to the existing Windows setup docs (#51, #52)

README's plain source-build quickstart and CONTRIBUTING's dev preset both fail immediately on Windows with no pointer to the working Windows flow already documented in installation.rst.

* Show a concrete Windows cmake command in README's Windows callout

The callout named the fix (-G flag) without a runnable example; add one for the common Visual Studio case, matching installation.rst's own generator guidance.

(cherry picked from commit f73a700e5c2396a5dee9054cbcaa65862ec04094)
---
 CONTRIBUTING.md | 6 ++++++
 README.md       | 9 +++++++++
 2 files changed, 15 insertions(+)

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 0abf2db..f1f1e25 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -31,6 +31,12 @@ Changes that improve readability, documentation, or interfaces are often welcome
    - `dev-intel` – Intel ifort with all bindings
    - `dev-ub-hunt` – GNU with undefined behavior detection (for advanced debugging)
 
+   These presets lock the Unix Makefiles generator and target GNU toolchains,
+   so they fail outright on Windows (`CMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM is not set`). On
+   Windows, follow the explicit generator flow in the [Windows
+   Notes](https://nasa.github.io/cea/installation.html#windows-notes) section
+   of the installation guide instead of the preset commands below.
+
 3. **Configure and build**
    ```bash
    cmake --preset dev
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 0cdc3fa..a653fa3 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -62,6 +62,15 @@ installation process is as follows:
     cmake --build .
     cmake --install .
 
+**Windows:** the command above needs an explicit `-G` generator flag — with
+none given and no Visual Studio installed, CMake defaults to NMake Makefiles
+and fails before reaching the Fortran compiler:
+
+    cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<cea_install_dir> -DCEA_BUILD_TESTING=OFF ..
+
+See the [Windows Notes](https://nasa.github.io/cea/installation.html#windows-notes)
+section of the full installation guide for Intel oneAPI and other options.
+
 This will build and install the `cea` executable, `libcea` library, default
 thermodynamic and transport property databases, documentation, and sample
 problems to the user-specified `cea_install_dir`.