Windows 2000, Windows XP, or newer version.

Windows Vista is supported when using Visual Studio 2005 provided you have installed the following updates:

To build from the standard source distribution, you will need CMake, which can be downloaded from http://www.cmake.org. After installing, modify your PATH environment variable to include the directory where cmake is located.

Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, Visual Studio .Net 2003 (7.1), or Visual Studio 2005 (8.0) compiler system.

If you are using Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, you must also install an appropriate Platform SDK. More information and links to downloads for various Windows platforms is available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0baf2b35-c656-4969-ace8-e4c0c0716adb.

If you are compiling from a Bazaar tree or making changes to the parser, you need bison for Windows, which can be downloaded from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/bison.htm. Download the package labeled “Complete package, excluding sources”. After installing the package, modify your PATH environment variable to include the directory where bison is located.

Cygwin might be necessary if you want to run the test script or package the compiled binaries and support files into a Zip archive. (Cygwin is needed only to test or package the distribution, not to build it.) Cygwin is available from http://cygwin.com.

3GB to 5GB of disk space.

Build from the standard MySQL source distribution. For this you will need CMake and Visual C++ Express Edition or Visual Studio. Using this method you can select the storage engines that are included in your build. To use this method, see Section 6.1, “Building MySQL from the Standard Source Distribution”.

Build from the MySQL Windows source distribution. The Windows source distribution includes ready-made Visual Studio solution files that enable support for all storage engines (except NDB). To build using using method you only need Visual C++ Express Edition or Visual Studio. To use this method, see Section 6.2, “Building MySQL from a Windows Source Distribution”.

Build directly from the Bazaar source repository. For this you will need CMake, Visual C++ Express Edition or Visual Studio, and bison. For this method you need to create the distribution on a Unix system and then copy the generated files to your Windows build environment. To use this method, see Section 6.5, “Creating a Windows Source Package from the Bazaar Repository”.