Build your own PHP on Windows

• Visual Studio, see this page for the supported versions
• Windows SDK or Platform SDK, see this page for the supported versions

• The set of tools required by the configure scripts

c:\Users\Pierre\> set PATH=%PATH%;c:\Users\pierre\Documents\php-sdk\bin
c:\Users\Pierre\> set BISON_SIMPLE=C:\Users\pierre\Documents\php-sdk\bin\bison.simple

The BISON_SIMPLE is important for the first time nmake is run. If this variable is not set (or if you don't have any /usr/local…), the following error will be raised:

        bison.exe --output=Zend/zend_language_parser.c -v -d -p zend Zend/zend_language_parser.y
C:\Users\pierre\Documents\php-sdk\bin\bison.exe: /usr/local/share/bison.simple: No such file or directory
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'C:\Users\pierre\Documents\php-sdk\bin\bison.exe' : return code '0x2'
Stop.

• Extract PHP source code in the same directory you have extracted the binary tools and libraries. This is important for the build system to be able to find the libraries.
• You may now have something like the following:
  • bin
  • includes
  • lib
  • phpx.x
• Open cmd.exe using the shortcut installed by Visual Studio in the Start menu (in Visual C++ > Visual Studio Tools). This shortcut sets up some environment variables needed by the build system.
• Go to the php directory
• Type the following commands:

  set PATH=C:\path where you extracted the binary tools\bin;%PATH%
  # also run the commands from the previous section
  buildconf
  configure
  nmake

Building with VS Express will not work as it will not find the WinResrc.h file.

I found that copying C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1\Include\WinResrc.h to winres.h allows PHP to build with VS Express.