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1. Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:

  • Visual Studio 2022 (with “Desktop development with C++” workload)
  • MFC must be also installed alongside VS.
  • CMake 3.24 or newer
  • Ninja (optional but faster builds)

2. Download and Extract Qt Source

1. Go to https://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/
2. Download qt-everywhere-src-6.10.0.zip
3. Extract to:

C:\Qt\qt-everywhere-src-6.10.0

4. Make sure you don’t have something like this:

C:\Qt\qt-everywhere-src-6.10.0\qt-everywhere-src-6.10.0

3. Open Developer Command Prompt

Open x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022 (or whichever matches your compiler).

4. Create Build Directories

cd C:\Qt\qt-everywhere-src-6.10.0
mkdir ..\qt-6.10.0-static-debug
mkdir ..\qt-6.10.0-static-release

5. Set Environment Variables

set QTDIR=C:\Qt\qt-everywhere-src-6.10.0\qtbase
set PATH=C:\Qt\qt-everywhere-src-6.10.0\qtbase\bin;%PATH%

6. Configure (Debug Build)

configure -static -static-runtime -debug -prefix "C:\Qt\qt-6.10.0-static-debug" -opensource -confirm-license -platform win32-msvc -opengl desktop -nomake examples -nomake tests

7. Configure (Release Build)

configure -static -static-runtime -release -prefix "C:\Qt\qt-6.10.0-static-release" -opensource -confirm-license -platform win32-msvc -opengl desktop -nomake examples -nomake tests

8. Build and Install

cmake --build . --parallel
cmake --install .

9. Result

After completion, you’ll have two static Qt builds:

  • Debug: C:\Qt\qt-6.10.0-static-debug
  • Release: C:\Qt\qt-6.10.0-static-release

10. Notes

  • 150 GBs of space recomemmended.
  • Building takes 1–2 hours depending on your CPU.
  • Make sure to set runtime libraries to static in your VS projects.

11. Recommended

  • When the build & install finishes, it’s better to clean old build files (source folder) to save space.
  • Don’t forget to zip ur build files.
  • To use the builds in another system, you must place the builds in C:\Qt folder.

Configure Command Explained

configure -static -static-runtime -debug -prefix "C:\Qt\qt-6.10.0-static-debug" -opensource -confirm-license -platform win32-msvc -opengl desktop -nomake examples -nomake tests

Each flag in this command controls how Qt is built:

  • -static — Builds Qt as static libraries (no DLLs). Useful for standalone apps that don’t depend on Qt DLLs at runtime.
  • -static-runtime — Links against the static C/C++ runtime libraries (`/MT` instead of `/MD`). This ensures your binaries don’t need Visual Studio redistributables installed.
  • -debug — Builds Qt in debug mode. Includes debug symbols and no optimization. Use this for development and debugging.
  • -prefix "C:\Qt\qt-6.10.0-static-debug" — Sets the installation directory for the built Qt files. After running `cmake —install .`, the finished build will be placed here.
  • -opensource — Accepts the open-source license build configuration. Required when building Qt from source under the GPL/LGPL license.
  • -confirm-license — Automatically accepts the open-source license without user interaction. Useful for automated builds or scripts.
  • -platform win32-msvc — Specifies the compiler platform (Microsoft Visual C++). This tells Qt’s build system to use MSVC toolchain instead of MinGW.
  • -opengl desktop — Uses the desktop OpenGL backend instead of ANGLE or software rendering. Recommended for systems with proper GPU drivers.
  • -nomake examples — Skips building example projects (saves time and space).
  • -nomake tests — Skips building internal test suites (also saves time and space).\

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Categories C++ Development