Compiling tcl for Windows

In order to compile Tcl for Windows, you need the following items:

* Tcl 8.4.12 source distribution (or the latest patch release)
* Visual C++ 5.x or greater.

In the win subdirectory of the source release, you will find makefile.vc. This is the makefile for the Visual C++ compiler. You should update the paths at the top of the file to reflect your system configuration. Now you can use make (or nmake for VC++) to build the tcl libraries and the tclsh executable.
In order to use the binaries generated by these makefiles, use

make install

to place the Tcl script library files someplace where Tcl can find them. Tcl looks in the following places for the library files:

1. The path specified in the environment variable "TCL_LIBRARY".
2. Relative to the directory containing the current .exe. Tcl will look for a directory "../lib/tcl8.4.12" relative to the directory containing the currently running .exe.

Note that in order to run tclsh8412.exe, you must ensure that tcl8412.dll and tclpip8412.dll (for Win9x) are on your path, in the system directory, or in the directory containing tclsh8412.exe.

Compiling Tk for windows follows a similar process. You must compile Tcl before you compile Tk.