This page describes the Ice source distribution, including information about compiler requirements, third-party dependencies, and instructions for building and testing the distribution. If you prefer, you can download a Windows installer that contains pre-compiled debug and release libraries, executables, and everything else necessary to build Ice applications on Windows.

 On this page:

Windows Build Requirements

Ice for C++ was extensively tested using the operating systems and compiler versions listed on our platforms page.

Third-party Libraries

Ice has dependencies on a number of third-party libraries:

• Berkeley DB 5.3
• expat 2.0
• OpenSSL 0.9.8 or later (OpenSSL 1.0 or later recommended)
• bzip2 1.0
• mcpp 2.7.2 (with patches)

You do not need to build these packages yourself, as ZeroC supplies a Windows installer that contains release and debug libraries for all of the third-party dependencies.

If you intend to build the third-party dependencies from source, we recommend downloading the Ice third-party source archive. This archive contains the source distributions for each of the third-party dependencies, as well as required source patches and configuration instructions.

Monotonic Clock

Ice uses the QueryPerformanceCounter Windows API function to measure time with a monotonic clock. If you are experiencing timing or performance issues, there are two knowledgebase articles that may be relevant for your system:

• KB 896256
• KB 895980

Compiling and Testing Ice for C++ on Windows

Building Ice

Using your favorite Zip tool, unzip the Ice source archive anywhere you like.

Open a command prompt that is configured for your target architecture. For example, when using Visual Studio 2010 or later, you have several alternatives:

• Visual Studio Command Prompt
• Visual Studio x64 Win64 Command Prompt
• Visual Studio x64 Cross Tools Command Prompt

Using the first configuration produces 32-bit binaries, while the second and third configurations produce 64-bit binaries.

Change the working directory to Ice-3.5.1. For example:

> cd C:\Ice-3.5.1\cpp

Edit config\Make.rules.mak to establish your build configuration. The comments in the file provide more information.

Now you're ready to build Ice:

> nmake /f Makefile.mak

Running the Test Suite

Python is required to run the test suite.

Open a command prompt and change to the top-level Ice directory.

Add the bin directory of the third-party libraries to your PATH.

For x86 builds:

> set PATH=ThirdPartyHome\bin;%PATH%

For x64 builds:

> set PATH=ThirdPartyHome\bin\x64;%PATH%

You can now run the test suite. At the command prompt, execute:

> python allTests.py

If everything worked out, you should see lots of "ok" messages. In case of a failure, the tests abort with "failed".

If you want to try out any of the demos, make sure to update your PATH environment variable to add the bin directory, which contains the Ice DLLs and executables.

x64 Platform

Building Ice on x64 with the Visual Studio C++ compiler is like building Ice on x86. You just need to perform the build in a "Visual Studio x64 Win64 Command Prompt", and not in a regular "Visual Studio Command Prompt".

Installing a C++ Source Build on Windows

Simply run nmake /f Makefile.mak install. This will install Ice in the directory specified by the prefix variable in config\Make.rules.mak.

After installation, if you plan to use the Visual Studio IDE for your Ice project, make sure to add the bin directory to the Visual C++ "Executable files", the include directory to the "Include files" and the lib directory to the "Library files" in the IDE.

If you built a 64-bit version of Ice, the binaries are installed in the bin\x64 directory and the libraries are installed in the lib\x64 directory.