*-pc-windows-msvc

Windows MSVC targets.

Tier 1 with host tools:

• i686-pc-windows-msvc: Windows on 32-bit x86.
• x86_64-pc-windows-msvc: Windows on 64-bit x86.

Tier 2 with host tools:

• aarch64-pc-windows-msvc: Windows on ARM64.

Target maintainers

@ChrisDenton @dpaoliello @lambdageek @sivadeilra @wesleywiser

Requirements

OS version

Windows 10 or higher is required for client installs, Windows Server 2016 or higher is required for server installs.

Host tooling

The minimum supported Visual Studio version is 2017 but this support is not actively tested in CI. It is highly recommended to use the latest version of VS (currently VS 2022).

Platform details

These targets fully implement the Rust standard library.

The extern "C" calling convention conforms to Microsoft's default calling convention for the given architecture: __cdecl on i686, x64 on x86_64 and ARM64 on aarch64.

The *-windows-msvc targets produce PE/COFF binaries with CodeView debuginfo, the native formats used on Windows.

Building Rust programs

These targets are distributed via rustup and can be installed via rustup component add [--toolchain {name}] {target}.

For example, adding the 32-bit x86 target to the nightly toolchain:

rustup component add --toolchain nightly i686-pc-windows-msvc

or adding the ARM64 target to the active toolchain:

rustup component add aarch64-pc-windows-msvc

Testing

There are no special requirements for testing and running this target.

Cross-compilation toolchains and C code

Architectural cross-compilation from one Windows host to a different Windows platform is natively supported by the MSVC toolchain provided the appropriate components are selected when using the VS Installer.

Cross-compilation from a non-Windows host to a *-windows-msvc target may be possible but is not supported.