I needed to compile OpenSSL on Windows in preparation for some JavaCard work. While OpenSSL can be compiled with a range of compilers, I wanted to specifically use Visual Studio because that is the compiler that is generally available on my machines. In addition to Visual Studio, I also needed a build of perl installed and available in the system path. After cloning OpenSSL and navigating to the root of the repository, the next step is generally to configure the build. For the JavaCard tools, a 32-bit version of OpenSSL is needed. I ran into some problems initially with part of the build process targeting 64-bit architecture. To prevent this from happening, some environment variables can be set to ensure the 32-bit version of the tools is used. Visual Studio provides a batch file for setting these environment variables that we can use. Below is the path at which I found this batch file. For you, it may vary depending on the edition of Visual Studio that you have.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars32.bat

Open a command terminal and run this batch file. Then you can start the build process. To configure the build process for 32-bit Windows with the options needed for the JavaCard environment, use the following command from the repository root.

perl Configure VC-WIN32 no-asm no-threads enable-weak-ssl-ciphers

If you wanted to make a general build, you could omit most everything after VC-WIN32. For a 64-bit build, use `VC-WIN64A.

Now for the long part. After this next command, if you were planning on making coffee or having a quick bite to eat, a good time is about to present itself. From the root of the repository, run the following command.

nmake

If you come back and find that the build process has terminated with a complaint about mixing 32-bit and 64-bit code, then that means that the system is using the 65-bit version of the tools. This will happen if you forgot to run the batch file that I mentioned earlier. If you would like to run the unit tests for OpenSSL, use the following command.

nmake test

This process also takes a significant amount of time. When it completes, the last step is to install OpenSSL. This command will likely fail unless you open an instance of the Visual Studio command prompt with Administrative priviledges.

nmake install

This command will place OpenSSL within c:\Program Files\OpenSSL. The executables themselves are in c:\Program Files\OpenSSL\bin.

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