Development Environment Setup on Windows

This section describes how to configure your development environment and to build Zephyr applications in a Microsoft Windows environment.

This guide was tested by building the Zephyr Hello World sample application on Windows versions 7, 8.1, and 10.

Update Your Operating System

Before proceeding with the build, ensure that you are running your Windows system with the latest updates installed.

Installing Requirements and Dependencies

There are 3 different ways of developing for Zephyr on Microsoft Windows. The first one is fully Windows native, whereas the 2 additional ones require emulation layers that slow down build times and are not as optimal. All of them are presented here for completeness, but unless you have a particular requirement for a UNIX tool that is not available on Windows, we strongly recommend you use the Windows Command Prompt for performance and minimal dependency set.

Option 1: Windows Command Prompt

The easiest way to install the dependencies natively on Microsoft Windows is to use the Chocolatey package manager (Chocolatey website). If you prefer to install those manually then simply download the required packages from their respective websites.

Note

There are multiple set statements in this tutorial. You can avoid typing them every time by placing them inside a .cmd file and running that every time you open a Command Prompt.

  1. If you’re behind a corporate firewall, you’ll likely need to specify a proxy to get access to internet resources:

    set HTTP_PROXY=http://user:password@proxy.mycompany.com:1234
set HTTPS_PROXY=http://user:password@proxy.mycompany.com:1234

  2. Install Chocolatey by following the instructions on the Chocolatey install website.

  3. Open a Command Prompt (cmd.exe) as an Administrator.

  4. Optionally disable global confirmation to avoid having to add -y to all commands:

    choco feature enable -n allowGlobalConfirmation

  5. Install CMake:

    choco install cmake --installargs 'ADD_CMAKE_TO_PATH=System'

  6. Install the rest of the tools:

    choco install git python ninja dtc-msys2 gperf doxygen.install

  7. Close the Command Prompt window.

  8. Open a Command Prompt (cmd.exe) as a regular user.

  9. Clone a copy of the Zephyr source into your home directory using Git.

    cd %userprofile%
git clone https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr.git

  10. Install the required Python modules:

    cd %userprofile%\zephyr
pip3 install -r scripts/requirements.txt

Note

Although pip can install packages in the user’s directory by means of the --user flag, this makes it harder for the Command Prompt to find the executables in Python modules installed by pip3.

  1. The build system should now be ready to work with any toolchain installed in your system. In the next step you’ll find instructions for installing toolchains for building both x86 and ARM applications.

  2. Install cross compiler toolchain:

    • For x86, install the 2017 Windows host ISSM toolchain from the Intel Developer Zone: ISSM Toolchain. Use your web browser to download the toolchain’s tar.gz file. You can then use 7-Zip or a similar tool to extract it into a destination folder.

      Note

      The ISSM toolset only supports development for Intel® Quark™ Microcontrollers, for example, the Arduino 101 board. (Check out the “Zephyr Development Environment Setup” in this Getting Started on Arduino 101 with ISSM document.) Additional setup is required to use the ISSM GUI for development.

    • For ARM, install GNU ARM Embedded from the ARM developer website: GNU ARM Embedded (install to c:\gnuarmemb).

  3. Within the Command Prompt, set up environment variables for the installed tools and for the Zephyr environment:

    For x86:

    set ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=issm
set ISSM_INSTALLATION_PATH=c:\issm0-toolchain-windows-2017-01-25

    Use the path where you extracted the ISSM toolchain.

    For ARM:

    set ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=gnuarmemb
set GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH=c:\gnuarmemb

    To use the same toolchain in new sessions in the future you can set the variables in the file %userprofile%\zephyrrc.cmd.

    And for either, run the zephyr-env.cmd file in order to set the ZEPHYR_BASE environment variable:

    zephyr-env.cmd

Note

In previous releases of Zephyr, the ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT variable was called ZEPHYR_GCC_VARIANT.

  1. Finally, you can try building the Hello World sample to check things out.

    To build for the Intel® Quark™ (x86-based) Arduino 101:

    cd %ZEPHYR_BASE%\samples\hello_world
mkdir build & cd build

# Use cmake to configure a Ninja-based build system:
cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=arduino_101 ..

# Now run ninja on the generated build system:
ninja

    To build for the ARM-based Nordic nRF52 Development Kit:

    cd %ZEPHYR_BASE%\samples\hello_world
mkdir build & cd build

# Use cmake to configure a Ninja-based build system:
cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=nrf52_pca10040 ..

# Now run ninja on the generated build system:
ninja

This should check that all the tools and toolchain are set up correctly for your own Zephyr development.

Option 2: MSYS2

Alternatively, one can set up the Zephyr development environment with MSYS2, a modern UNIX environment for Windows. Follow the steps below to set it up:

  1. Download and install MSYS2. Download the appropriate (32 or 64-bit) MSYS2 installer from the MSYS2 website and execute it. On the final installation screen, check the “Run MSYS2 now.” box to start up an MSYS2 shell when installation is complete. Follow the rest of the installation instructions on the MSYS2 website to update the package database and core system packages. You may be advised to “terminate MSYS2 without returning to shell and check for updates again”. If so, simply close the MSYS2 MSYS Shell desktop app and run it again to complete the update.)

  2. Launch the MSYS2 MSYS Shell desktop app from your start menu (if it’s not still open).

    Note

    Make sure you start MSYS2 MSYS Shell, not MSYS2 MinGW Shell.

    Note

    If you need to inherit the existing Windows environment variables into MSYS2 you will need to create a Windows environment variable like so:: MSYS2_PATH_TYPE=inherit.

    Note

    There are multiple export statements in this tutorial. You can avoid typing them every time by placing them at the bottom of your ~/.bash_profile file.

  3. If you’re behind a corporate firewall, you’ll likely need to specify a proxy to get access to internet resources:

    export http_proxy=http://proxy.mycompany.com:123
export https_proxy=$http_proxy

  4. Update MSYS2’s packages and install the dependencies required to build Zephyr (you may need to restart the MSYS2 shell):

    pacman -Syu
pacman -S git cmake make gcc dtc diffutils ncurses-devel python3 gperf

  5. Compile Ninja from source (Ninja is not available as an MSYS2 package) and install it:

    git clone git://github.com/ninja-build/ninja.git && cd ninja
git checkout release
./configure.py --bootstrap
cp ninja.exe /usr/bin/

  6. From within the MSYS2 MSYS Shell, clone a copy of the Zephyr source into your home directory using Git. (Some Zephyr tools require Unix-style line endings, so we’ll configure Git for this repo to not do the automatic Unix/Windows line ending conversion (using --config core.autocrlf=false).

    cd ~
git clone --config core.autocrlf=false https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr.git

  7. Install pip and the required Python modules:

    curl -O 'https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py'
./get-pip.py
rm get-pip.py
cd ~/zephyr   # or to the folder where you cloned the zephyr repo
pip install --user -r scripts/requirements.txt

  8. The build system should now be ready to work with any toolchain installed in your system. In the next step you’ll find instructions for installing toolchains for building both x86 and ARM applications.

  9. Install cross compiler toolchain:

    • For x86, install the 2017 Windows host ISSM toolchain from the Intel Developer Zone: ISSM Toolchain. Use your web browser to download the toolchain’s tar.gz file.

      You’ll need the tar application to unpack this file. In an MSYS2 MSYS console, install tar and use it to extract the toolchain archive:

      pacman -S tar
tar -zxvf /c/Users/myusername/Downloads/issm-toolchain-windows-2017-01-15.tar.gz -C /c

      substituting the .tar.gz path name with the one you downloaded.

      Note

      The ISSM toolset only supports development for Intel® Quark™ Microcontrollers, for example, the Arduino 101 board. (Check out the “Zephyr Development Environment Setup” in this Getting Started on Arduino 101 with ISSM document.) Additional setup is required to use the ISSM GUI for development.

    • For ARM, install GNU ARM Embedded from the ARM developer website: GNU ARM Embedded (install to c:\gnuarmemb).

  10. Within the MSYS console, set up environment variables for the installed tools and for the Zephyr environment (using the provided shell script):

    For x86:

    export ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=issm
export ISSM_INSTALLATION_PATH=/c/issm0-toolchain-windows-2017-01-25

    Use the path where you extracted the ISSM toolchain.

    For ARM:

    export ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=gnuarmemb
export GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH=/c/gnuarmemb

    And for either, run the provided script to set up zephyr project specific variables:

    unset ZEPHYR_SDK_INSTALL_DIR
cd <zephyr git clone location>
source zephyr-env.sh

  11. Finally, you can try building the Hello World sample to check things out.

To build for the Intel® Quark™ (x86-based) Arduino 101:

cd %ZEPHYR_BASE%\samples\hello_world
mkdir build & cd build

# Use cmake to configure a Ninja-based build system:
cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=arduino_101 ..

# Now run ninja on the generated build system:
ninja

To build for the ARM-based Nordic nRF52 Development Kit:

cd %ZEPHYR_BASE%\samples\hello_world
mkdir build & cd build

# Use cmake to configure a Ninja-based build system:
cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=nrf52_pca10040 ..

# Now run ninja on the generated build system:
ninja

This should check that all the tools and toolchain are set up correctly for your own Zephyr development.

Option 3: Windows 10 WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

If you are running a recent version of Windows 10 you can make use of the built-in functionality to natively run Ubuntu binaries directly on a standard command-prompt. This allows you to install the standard Zephyr SDK and build for all supported architectures without the need for a Virtual Machine.

  1. Install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) following the instructions on the official Microsoft website: WSL Installation

    Note

    For the Zephyr SDK to function properly you will need Windows 10 build 15002 or greater. You can check which Windows 10 build you are running in the “About your PC” section of the System Settings. If you are running an older Windows 10 build you might need to install the Creator’s Update.

  2. Follow the instructions for Ubuntu detailed in the Zephyr Linux Getting Started Guide which can be found here: Development Environment Setup on Linux