I build kicad from source code under win11 with visual studio. And I can run kicad from build directory.But after I do install with visual studio, some files installed install directory, but when I do kicad from install directory, It’s failed, just tell me some dll is no found. Is there anyway to pack kicad from build directory?
Easy way is to download a nightly build and install it in the same directory, then overwrite install from your IDE. It will not only put all dlls but also correct python install where it’s needed.
That sounds dangerous.
It looks like you will then mix your own compiled version with dll’s from that nightly.
And what is the use of compiling it yourself in the first place if you also pull binaries from the 'net?
Edit: I know very little about compiling KiCad. 
If you use a nightly from around the same time as your build from source, that should work… And it’s by far the most straightforward path. There is no way to do a full install from visual studio since we don’t use cmake to install on Windows (we use a separate installer) so the other approach is to manually copy all the required dependencies into place from the location vcpkg puts them when building.
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Nothing dangerous, those are the same dll’s built with same tools.
Point is to be able to work on source code development.
If the point is to not download any binaries and have everything compiled yourself then, frankly, you are using wrong OS. But the alternative to get all dll’s from vcpkg install dir as Jon said above works.
Is there any way to pack kicad***.exe file from build directory?
No. If you want to make an installer you need to use the kicad-win-builder scripts.
Which are also not intended for people building from source while developing it
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Ok, i will try this later, thanks for your advice.
I want to use kicad 6.99 build from source under windows.(I can use kicad build from source properly under linux). obey the document from official website. I can lauch kicad from build directory, but there are some mistake by this way:
- plugin icons couldn’t show
- some tools couldn’t launch from kicad, just print some dlls missing
So, I wonder there could be some way to pack kicad from source, then I can execute kicad***.exe to install kicad to fix these issues.
After I build kicad 6.99 under win10, when I execute it I get these errors as:
See “Running and debugging” section here Windows (Visual Studio) | Developer Documentation | KiCad
You need to setup some env variables to be able to run from build directory.
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