Building

Configure

cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A Win32

Key points:

• The generator must be Visual Studio 17 2022 with the Win32 architecture.
• CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is set to build/bin, so all binaries land in build/bin/<Config>/ regardless of which module produced them.
• Common compile definitions are set globally: UNICODE/_UNICODE, WINVER=0x0601, NOMINMAX, WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN, _CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS, plus the version macros (VERSION_MAJOR=16, VERSION_MINOR=4, VERSION_BUILD=3528, VERSION_REVISION=331).

Build

# Everything (Debug)
cmake --build build --config Debug

# Everything (Release)
cmake --build build --config Release

# A single target
cmake --build build --config Debug --target MovieMakerCore --parallel

Or use the wrapper script:

.\tools\build.ps1                      # Full Debug build
.\tools\build.ps1 -Config Release      # Release
.\tools\build.ps1 -Target MovieMakerCore   # Single target
.\tools\build.ps1 -Clean               # Clean build
.\tools\build.ps1 -Analyze             # Build + run binary analysis

Build outputs

EXE and DLL targets write to build/bin/<Config>/ (CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY). The three static-library targets (MediaCatalog, TimelineEngine, PlaybackEngine) instead produce .lib files under build/lib/<Config>/ (CMAKE_ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY). The headline outputs in build/bin/Debug/:

Output	Target type	Role
MovieMaker.exe	Launcher EXE (~94 KB)	Thin WinMain launcher; delay-loads MovieMakerCore.dll
MovieMakerCore.dll	Engine DLL (~1.4 MB)	The entire application: app framework, project model, rendering, UI
WLXPhotoBase.dll	Foundation DLL	Shared base library used by all WLX components
MovieMakerLang.dll	Resource-only DLL	Localization strings, UIFILEs, icons
WLXPipeline.dll, WLXPipetran.dll, WLXVideoTrim.dll, WLXMovieLibrary.dll, WLXSlideshow.dll, WLXPhotoCinematic.dll, WLXMediaPublishSubscribe.dll, WLXFaceRecognition.dll, WLXMP4Parser.dll, WLMFDS.dll, WLMFReadWrite.dll, MovieMakerPreviewClient.dll	Supporting DLLs	Media pipeline, effects, publishing, parsing
WLXTranscode.exe, WLXCodecHost.exe	Supporting EXEs	Transcode tool and out-of-process codec host
UXCore.dll, uxctl.dll, GPURenderer.dll, MediaCatalog.lib, TimelineEngine.lib, PlaybackEngine.lib, DmxBici.dll, MetadataSys.dll, wlidcli.dll, WLXPhotoSqm.dll	Engine-layer & platform targets	DirectUI engine layer, telemetry, metadata, identity

The full table with per-module documentation is in the Module Reference.

What a clean build looks like

A successful full build reports 0 compile errors, 0 link errors, 0 RC errors, e.g.:

MovieMakerCore.vcxproj -> build\bin\Debug\MovieMakerCore.dll
MovieMaker.vcxproj -> build\bin\Debug\MovieMaker.exe
...
Build succeeded.
    0 Warning(s)
    0 Error(s)

Don't panic about build_clean

A second directory, build_clean/ (gitignored), holds the reference/parity-stub DLLs used for export comparison. Those return E_NOTIMPL from many entry points by design — they are an export-parity source only, never a behavioral oracle. If you find yourself testing against build_clean\bin\Debug, you are testing the wrong binaries.

CI

GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/build-projects.yml) builds every target on a windows-2022 runner matrix — the runner is pinned because the project requires the VS2022 Win32 toolchain. Documentation deployment is handled separately by docs deployment (see .github/workflows/docs.yml).