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Install on Windows

raylib-rs builds on Windows using the MSVC toolchain (Visual Studio Build Tools). The MSVC linker and Windows SDK are required; the MinGW/GNU toolchain is not supported.

Prerequisites

  1. Rust 1.85+ — install via rustup. When rustup asks which toolchain to install, choose stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc (the default on Windows).

  2. Visual Studio Build Tools 2019 or newer — download the Build Tools for Visual Studio installer. During setup, select the “Desktop development with C++” workload. This provides cl.exe, the Windows SDK headers, and the linker.

  3. CMake 3.15+ — download from cmake.org and ensure cmake is on your PATH. CMake is required by the raylib-sys build script to compile the vendored raylib C source.

Install steps

# 1. Install rustup (if not already installed)
#    Download from https://rustup.rs/ and run the installer.

# 2. Confirm the MSVC toolchain is active
rustup show

# 3. Create a new project
cargo new my-raylib-game
cd my-raylib-game

# 4. Add raylib as a dependency
cargo add raylib

# 5. Build
cargo build

If the build succeeds you will see raylib compile and link. Replace src/main.rs with the hello-window snippet from the Quickstart and run with cargo run.

Windowing and graphics back end

raylib-rs uses GLFW + OpenGL 3.3 by default on Windows. The wayland and drm features are Linux-only and have no effect here.

Troubleshooting

  • “cannot find libclang” or bindgen errors — bindgen requires a working LLVM/clang installation on some paths. Install the LLVM toolchain for Windows and set LIBCLANG_PATH to the LLVM bin directory. See the bindgen requirements docs and the project backlog issue #254 for known issues.

  • “link.exe not found” or linker errors — confirm that Visual Studio Build Tools are installed with the “Desktop development with C++” workload. Run rustup default stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc to ensure you are on the MSVC toolchain.

  • CMake not found — ensure cmake --version works in a new terminal. Add CMake’s bin directory to your PATH or reinstall CMake with the “Add CMake to the system PATH” option checked.