Windows Building Instructions

[Savestate2A03]

Build for Windows

Building rive-runtime for Windows seems to be rather difficult, seemingly due to the lack of documentation surrounding requirements and steps to do so. After entirely too much tinkering around, I've come across some steps that might help lead folks into getting a build configuration that works for them.

Setup

This is how my system is set up, some may not be required, but I'm listing it in its entirety for completions sake:

Overview

• Visual Studio 2022
  • Desktop development with C++
  • .NET desktop development
  • Game development with Unity (unsure if required)
• Git Bash (for access to bash and other unix-like commands)

VS2022 Configuration

The Desktop development with C++ option is configured as such. The build tools are necessary for this I am pretty sure.

Steps

1. Open the rive-runtime folder in Git Bash
2. Start a Command Prompt terminal session from within Git Bash by running cmd

Note: This is necessary because running the following batch file will fail if the current context is bash.

3. Run the command build\setup_windows_dev.bat
   
   By this point you are in a VS2022 Developer Command Prompt context with access to the unix-like tools Git Bash provides. You can see this by both running echo %PATH% to see the developer context and then ls to see that the unix-like commands are still available. This also adds the build scripts to your PATH which is necessary for this next part.

ciaru@m-omen-tai MINGW64 ~
$ cd /e/Plugins/rive-runtime/

ciaru@m-omen-tai MINGW64 /e/Plugins/rive-runtime (main)
$ cmd
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26100.6584]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

E:\Plugins\rive-runtime>build\setup_windows_dev.bat
build\setup_windows_dev.bat
E:\Plugins\rive-runtime\build\
E:\
**********************************************************************
** Visual Studio 2022 Developer Command Prompt v17.14.13
** Copyright (c) 2025 Microsoft Corporation
**********************************************************************

E:\Plugins\rive-runtime>ls
ls
Dockerfile  LICENSE    build        decoders      dev      premake5_v2.lua  rivinfo    skia  tess   utils
Doxyfile    README.md  cg_renderer  dependencies  include  renderer         scripting  src   tests

E:\Plugins\rive-runtime>echo %PATH%
echo %PATH%
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\bin\HostX86\x86;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\IDE\VC\VCPackages;C:\Progra...
...so on and so forth...

4. Change directory to skia/dependencies with cd skia\dependencies
5. Run bash make_glfw.sh to get glfw3 which is a required dependency.
6. Change directories to renderer with cd ..\..\renderer
7. Run build_rive.bat release clean --with_vulkan and pray to your god. Also a good time to make a cup of tea.

I do not know if this builds with other flags, I have not tested.

NOTE: I have no idea what to do from here, I'm just helping my husband with getting this to do what seems like a successful build. I can't say whether or not this has everything necessary, but if not, hopefully it helps shine some light on an approach that works given what these steps may have revealed or informed you about. The only reason I am posting this guide is because it seems like others are also having issues with little-to-no resolution.

Artifacts

The build artifacts can be located in rive-runtime/renderer/out/release/

path-fiddle.exe

This is an artifact generated by the solution as a means to test that the build is functional. It's cute.

The Solution

The generated VS2022 .sln is located at rive-runtime/renderer/out/release/rive.sln. It has these projects configured within it, including for path-fiddle.exe shown above. Since rive and rive_pls_renderer are in there, I presume this meets most folks needs, but as stated, I don't really know but it seems pretty thorough.

NOTE: The solution reports a lot of errors with its Intellisense or something, but they seemingly do not affect the actual compilation.*

*SEE BELOW

IMPORTANT NOTE: Compiling from within VS2022 seems to not entirely work because it's still trying to use linux commands to copy files after the build. Make sure to instead run build_rive.bat rebuild out/release from the renderer folder in the rivevscmd-within-cmd-within-gitbash context we set up above. lol.

Troubleshooting

Q: make fails when trying to do something with fxc
A: Make sure you have the Windows Kit installed in your VS2022 installation under Desktop development with C++

Not sure what to say about any other errors that could happen. Hopefully it helps!