msvc-go-wine

Cross compile with MSVC on Linux, using Wine — a single-binary Go tool inspired by mstorsjo/msvc-wine's approach (download the real MSVC/WinSDK, wrap the compiler under Wine), implemented independently.

Once installed, you invoke the real Microsoft toolchain exactly like on Windows: cl, link, lib, rc, midl, mt, dumpbin, msbuild, nmake, ml, ml64, armasm, armasm64 all just work from your PATH.

How it works

msvc-go-wine is one Go binary that behaves differently depending on the name it's invoked as (a "multi-call binary", like busybox):

• Invoked as cl, link, lib, ... → it loads a small per-architecture env.json, builds the INCLUDE/LIB/WINEPATH environment Wine needs, rewrites absolute unix paths in the arguments into Wine's z:\... form (working around a Wine/cl.exe include-path bug), runs the real .exe under wine/wine64, and rewrites the tool's output back from z:\... paths to plain unix paths so your build system's error parsing keeps working.
• Invoked as msvc-go-wine → it exposes the download, install, env and version management subcommands described below.

Quick start

# 1. Download and unpack MSVC + Windows SDK into ~/.msvc-go-wine (requires
#    accepting Microsoft's Visual Studio Build Tools license, and msitools
#    for unpacking .msi payloads). Pass --dest <dir> for a different location.
msvc-go-wine download --accept-license

# 2. Wire up the tool wrappers
msvc-go-wine install

# 3. Add the toolchain to PATH and build
export PATH=~/.msvc-go-wine/bin/x64:$PATH
cl /nologo /EHsc hello.cpp

Prerequisites

• wine (or wine64) — runs the real cl.exe/link.exe/etc.
• msitools (msiextract) — unpacks the .msi payloads MSVC/WinSDK ship as.
• git — used to apply the small compatibility patches bundled with download (see Compatibility patches below).

On ALT Linux:

pkcon install wine msitools

Commands

msvc-go-wine download --accept-license [--dest <dir>] [options]   fetch and unpack MSVC/WinSDK
msvc-go-wine install [dir]                                        wire up wrappers for a downloaded MSVC
msvc-go-wine env --bin <dir>/bin/<arch>                           print INCLUDE/LIB for native clang-cl/lld-link use
msvc-go-wine version                                              print the version

--dest/[dir] both default to ~/.msvc-go-wine when omitted.

download supports --msvc-version, --sdk-version, --architecture, --host-arch, --with-* component toggles, --ignore, --only-download, --only-unpack, --keep-unpack, --cache, --language, --include-optional, --skip-recommended, --major, --preview, --manifest, --list-workloads, --list-components, --print-deps-tree. Run msvc-go-wine download -h for the full list.

--list-workloads/--list-components print every workload/component id (with its human-readable title) available in the fetched manifest and exit without downloading anything - useful for discovering what to pass as a bare package id or via --with-*. --print-deps-tree prints the dependency tree of whatever would actually be selected (honoring every other flag), also without downloading.

Using clang-cl/lld-link instead of Wine

You don't need Wine at all if you drive the (nonredistributable) MSVC/WinSDK headers and libraries with Clang/LLD in MSVC-compatible mode:

eval "$(msvc-go-wine env --bin ~/.msvc-go-wine/bin/x64)"
clang-cl -c hello.c
lld-link hello.obj -out:hello.exe

Building from source

go build -o msvc-go-wine ./cmd/msvc-go-wine

Go 1.23+ is all you need to build it; wine/msitools are only needed at run time (install/tool invocation and download respectively).

toolrelay.exe

install compiles assets/vendor/toolrelay.cpp (a small native Windows launcher, original to this project) with the freshly-installed host-arch cl.exe (best-effort: if wine isn't present yet, or the compile fails, install still succeeds and the wrapper runtime just falls back to invoking tools directly through wine). When present, every non-MSBuild tool invocation is routed through it via two named FIFOs. This is what lets mt.exe's CMake-compatibility exit-code translation (0x41020001 → 0xbb) survive Wine's own exit-code truncation: only a native Windows process observing the untranslated code via GetExitCodeProcess() can catch it before Wine marshals the process exit back to Unix and drops everything but the low byte.

Compatibility patches

download applies a handful of small patches (assets/patches) to the downloaded MSVC/WinSDK tree - independently written for this project - that make VsDevCmd.bat and MSBuild's SDK-detection props work without a Windows Registry (which doesn't exist under Wine): they check the SDK directly under the VS install root instead of querying the registry, skip telemetry, and don't hard-fail devcmd setup when an optional component (ConnectionManagerExe, bundled CMake/Ninja) wasn't downloaded.

Known gaps

• download doesn't yet support installing the Windows Driver Kit via --with-wdk-installers; the core selection/download/unpack/install pipeline, dependency tree printing, and workload/component listing are all fully implemented.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.txt - covers msvc-go-wine's own source only. The MSVC Build Tools / Windows SDK that download fetches remain governed by Microsoft's own license (accepted via --accept-license), same as with any other way of obtaining them.