# Installing OR-Tools for C++ from Binary on Windows

## Introduction

This guide explains how to install OR-Tools for C++ on Windows.

Although these instructions might also work on other Windows variants, we
have only tested them on machines meeting the following requirements:


Windows 10 64-bit (x86_64) with:

- Microsoft Visual Studio Enterprise 2022
- Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022 Preview 2 or above

<br />

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** OR-Tools only provides archives for the **x86_64** (also known as **amd64**) architecture.

## Prerequisites

The following sections describe the prerequisites for installing OR-Tools.

### Visual Studio

To build and run OR-Tools on Windows, you must have Visual Studio 2022 or
later installed on your computer with the C++ toolset for Visual Studio.

You can find more details [here](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/?q=Build+Tools+for+Visual+Studio).

To build OR-Tools programs from the command line you **must** use a
**x64 Native Tools Command Prompt** (**not** the Developer Command Prompt).

You can find more details [here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/building-on-the-command-line#how-to-get-the-command-line-tools).

## Installing OR-Tools

Take the following steps to install the OR-Tools library for C++:

Download and extract the binary distribution for your system:


- [Visual Studio 2022](https://github.com/google/or-tools/releases/download/v9.12/or-tools_x64_VisualStudio2022_cpp_v9.12.4544.zip)

<br />

## Validate your installation

To test your C++ installations, open a x64 Native Tools Command Prompt and navigate to
the directory where you unpacked the binary distribution. Then enter the
following command:


    make test

<br />

This runs a selection of examples for OR-Tools. If all the examples run
successfully, you are ready to
[get started with OR-Tools](https://developers.google.com/optimization/introduction/cpp).