Installing Qt Mobility Libraries on Windows 7

UPDATE: This article is obsolete. Please refer to the latest article, Installing Qt Mobility Final Libraries on Windows 7.

By following this article, you should be ready to develop Qt Mobility applications on Windows.

Note: This is only for Qt for Windows installation. If you want to develop Qt applications for Symbian on Windows, click here.

1. Install Qt SDK 4.6 + Qt Creator 1.3 for Windows.
2. Install Strawberry Perl for Windows (~ 32 MB). The reason why Perl is needed is covered in the later in this article.
3. Download Qt Mobility library sources.
4. Unpack Qt Mobility source distribution into a folder without spaces, e.g. C:\qtmobility
5. Apply this patch to config.tests/make/make.pro. You can use patch tool, but you can edit the file manually (view the patch to see changes).
6. Launch Qt Command Prompt
7. Set the PATH to Strawberry Perl :
   
   
   
   

   set PATH=%PATH%;C:\strawberry\perl\bin
   

   
   
8. Go to your Qt Mobility folder and run configure:
   
   
   
   

   cd \qtmobility
   configure
   

   This will configure Qt Mobility build with default target directory: C:\QtMobility
   
   
9. Build Qt Mobility:
   
   
   
   

   mingw32-make
   mingw32-make install

   
   
10. Add C:\qtmobility\lib folder to your PATH environment variable (more on this below).
11. To add Qt Mobility documentation in Qt Creator: Go to Tools -> Options -> Help -> Add. Then browse C:\qtmobility/doc/qch/qtmobility.qch. 

Now you're ready to develop with Qt Mobility on Windows. Check out Qt Mobility Quickstart App for an example.

Setting Environment Variables

In order to use Qt Mobility some environment variables need to be extended to locate the libraries, which are placed in the lib directory of the install path.

On Windows: PATH should be extended to include: C:\%TARGET_DIR%\lib

On my setup this folder is: C:\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2\lib

PATH can be extended through Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment variables. Under System variables, select "PATH", click "Edit..." and append your Qt Mobility lib folder.

Reboot your system to apply your changes to system environment variables.

You're now ready to develop Qt Mobility applications in Windows. :-)

Problems I Encountered... So You Don' Have To

I first tried to unpack Qt Mobility into My Documents, but I can't compile it:

C:\Users\ceefour\Documents\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2>configure
C:\Users\ceefour\Documents\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2
Checking available Qt
4.6.0
Checking make
 "Cannot find 'nmake', 'mingw32-make' or 'make' in your PATH"
 "Aborting."

I tried to move it to a top-level folder (C:\qtmobility) but still getting the same error.

After reading Forum Nokia thread: Qt Mobility problem, I tried to reboot my computer, but didn't help. There's also steps to install Qt Mobility for Symbian.

After further investigation leads me that configure determines its expected build system to be symbian-sbsv2 based on running qmake on config.tests\make\make.pro :

C:\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2>qmake config.tests\make\make.pro
Project MESSAGE: symbian-sbsv2
Project MESSAGE: symbian-sbsv2
Project MESSAGE: symbian-sbsv2

C:\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2>make
'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

So it's looking for make.exe, which doesn't exist on my system.

I harcoded BUILDSYSTEM=win32-mingw by patching configure.bat here:

...
    for /f "tokens=3" %%i in ('%QT_PATH%qmake %SOURCE_PATH%\config.tests\make\make.pro 2^>^&1 1^>NUL') do set BUILDSYSTEM=%%i

    set BUILDSYSTEM=win32-mingw

    if %BUILDSYSTEM% == symbian-abld (
...

Update: Use this patch.

and now configure seem to work...

C:\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2>configure
C:\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2
Checking available Qt
4.6.0
Checking make
hello
... mingw32-make found.

Start of compile tests
Checking LBT
'Y_MAKEPROJECT_LOG' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
... Not Found
'compile' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.


"Generating Mobility Headers..."
The system cannot find the file specified.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Running qmake...
Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/src.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/global/global.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/serviceframework/serviceframework.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/bearer/bearer.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/location/location.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/contacts/contacts.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/multimedia/multimedia.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/publishsubscribe/publishsubscribe.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/versit/versit.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/src/systeminfo/systeminfo.pro
Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/tools/tools.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/tools/servicefw/servicefw.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/tools/servicexmlgen/servicexmlgen.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/tools/vsexplorer/vsexplorer.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/tools/qcrmlgen/qcrmlgen.pro
Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/plugins/plugins.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/plugins/contacts/contacts.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/plugins/multimedia/multimedia.pro
  Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/plugins/multimedia/m3u/m3u.pro
  Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/plugins/multimedia/phonon/phonon.pro
  Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/plugins/multimedia/audiocapture/audiocapt
ure.pro
Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/doc/doc.pro
 Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/doc/src/snippets/snippets.pro
  Reading C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/doc/src/snippets/qtcontactsdocsample/qtco
ntactsdocsample.pro

configure has finished. You may run mingw32-make to build the project now.

Time to run mingw32-make and pray:

...
g++ -c -O2 -frtti -fexceptions -mthreads -Wall -DUNICODE -DQT_LARGEFILE_SUPPORT
-DQT_DLL -DQT_NO_DEBUG -DQT_GUI_LIB -DQT_CORE_LIB -DQT_THREAD_SUPPORT -DQT_NEEDS
_QMAIN -I"c:\Qt\2009.05\qt\include\QtCore" -I"c:\Qt\2009.05\qt\include\QtGui" -I
"c:\Qt\2009.05\qt\include" -I"c:\Qt\2009.05\qt\include\QtContacts_tp" -I"..\..\.
.\..\src\global" -I"..\..\..\..\src\contacts" -I"..\..\..\..\src\contacts\reques
ts" -I"..\..\..\..\src\contacts\filters" -I"..\..\..\..\src\contacts\details" -I
"c:\QtMobility\include" -I"c:\Qt\2009.05\qt\include\ActiveQt" -I"..\..\..\..\bui
ld\Release\qtcontactsdocsample\moc" -I"c:\Qt\2009.05\qt\mkspecs\win32-g++" -o ..
\..\..\..\build\Release\qtcontactsdocsample\moc_requestexample.o ..\..\..\..\bui
ld\Release\qtcontactsdocsample\moc\moc_requestexample.cpp
g++ -enable-stdcall-fixup -Wl,-enable-auto-import -Wl,-enable-runtime-pseudo-rel
oc -Wl,-s -mthreads -Wl -Wl,-subsystem,windows -o ..\..\..\..\bin\examples\qtcon
tactsdocsample.exe ../../../../build/Release/qtcontactsdocsample/qtcontactsdocsa
mple.o ../../../../build/Release/qtcontactsdocsample/moc_requestexample.o  -L"c:
\Qt\2009.05\qt\lib" -lmingw32 -lqtmain -LC:\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/lib -LC:\Q
tMobility/lib -lQtContacts_tp -lQtGui4 -lQtCore4
mingw32-make[4]: Leaving directory `C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/doc/src/snippet
s/qtcontactsdocsample'
mingw32-make[3]: Leaving directory `C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/doc/src/snippet
s/qtcontactsdocsample'
mingw32-make[2]: Leaving directory `C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/doc/src/snippet
s'
mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `C:/qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2/doc'

C:\qt-mobility-src-1.0.0-tp2>_

The build took a few minutes and it seems everything's fine.

P.S.: I could have just "given up" and install Symbian S60 SDK first. :-)

Compiling Qt Mobility with Debug enabled

If you try to develop a Qt Mobility app and using the Debug configuration (which is default), you'll get errors similar to these:

Running build steps for project locale-qt...

Starting: c:/qt/2009.05/qt/bin/qmake.exe C:/Users/ceefour/Documents/locale-qt/locale-qt.pro -spec win32-g++ -r

Exited with code 0.

Starting: C:/Qt/2009.05/mingw/bin/mingw32-make.exe -w

mingw32-make: Entering directory `C:/Users/ceefour/Documents/locale-qt'

C:/Qt/2009.05/mingw/bin/mingw32-make -f Makefile.Debug

mingw32-make[1]: Entering directory `C:/Users/ceefour/Documents/locale-qt'

g++ -enable-stdcall-fixup -Wl,-enable-auto-import -Wl,-enable-runtime-pseudo-reloc -mthreads -Wl -Wl,-subsystem,windows -o debug\locale-qt.exe debug/main.o debug/mainwindow.o debug/moc_mainwindow.o -L"c:\Qt\2009.05\qt\lib" -lmingw32 -lqtmaind -LC:\qtmobility/lib -lQtSystemInfo_tpd -lQtGuid4 -lQtNetworkd4 -lQtCored4

mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `C:/Users/ceefour/Documents/locale-qt'

mingw32-make: Leaving directory `C:/Users/ceefour/Documents/locale-qt'

c:/qt/2009.05/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.4.0/../../../../mingw32/bin/ld.exe: cannot find -lQtSystemInfo_tpd

collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

mingw32-make[1]: *** [debug\locale-qt.exe] Error 1

mingw32-make: *** [debug] Error 2

Exited with code 2.

Error while building project locale-qt

When executing build step 'Make'

You have two choices:

1. Build your project using Release configuration.
2. Build Qt Mobility with Debug enabled as well.

To build Qt Mobility with Debug enabled, simply add the argument -debug to configure in the steps above:

configure -debug

Then repeat the build process as usual.

Installing Perl

I noticed some errors early in the "configure" process:

"Generating Mobility Headers..."
Access is denied.
'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
...

This is one reason why I hate hesitate to use Windows. Qt Mobility's include folder, which should contain the header files, is still empty. Time to install a Perl interpreter.

Get Strawberry Perl for Windows (~ 32 MB).

Strawberry Perl automatically adds itself to your PATH system variable, you can check this by running perl -v :

C:\strawberry>perl -v

This is perl, v5.10.1 (*) built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread

Copyright 1987-2009, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit.

Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on
this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl".  If you have access to the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Page.

Unfortunately, Qt Command Prompt sets its own PATH environment variable, overriding. Before running configure, do:

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\strawberry\perl\bin

Now you can configure and build Qt Mobility on Windows properly.

See also:

• Installing Qt Mobility Libraries on Ubuntu
• Kashif's Installing Qt Mobility for Symbian on Windows