MozillaBuild

Overview

MozillaBuild is a meta-installer that provides everything needed to build Mozilla on Windows, sans Visual C++. Its source lives in https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-build/. Bugs should be filed in mozilla.org :: MozillaBuild. For information about building Mozilla on Win32, see the Mozilla Developer Center page.

Current Version

The current version of MozillaBuild is 3.4. It is available on ftp.mozilla.org.

To Upgrade From A Previous Version

Upgrading from an earlier MozillaBuild installation is straightforward but each step is important.

1. Delete your current MozillaBuild environment by moving your MozillaBuild folder into the trash. If you can't remove the existing installation, you probably have a terminal open or ssh-agent running. Terminate that process and try again.
2. Install the new MozillaBuild release.
3. If you had previously enabled Mintty, you will need to do so again by adding SET USE_MINTTY=1 to the top of start-shell.bat.
4. Clobber any trees you have by running ./mach clobber (build errors may occur otherwise).
5. Re-run ./mach bootstrap to ensure that your tools are up-to-date. Ensure that you agree to run the Mercurial configuration wizard to ensure that its extensions are up-to-date.

Windows Terminal

It's possible to use Windows Terminal instead of the Command Prompt when using MozillaBuild. To do so, add the following profile to the Windows Terminal settings JSON file:

{
    "name": "MozillaBuild",
    "commandline": "C:/mozilla-build/start-shell.bat -here",
}

Note that:

• The -here flag can only be provided for MozillaBuild 4.0 and newer. Remove it from commandline if you're using MozillaBuild 3.4 or earlier.
• Additionally, the "startingDirectory" option and the wt -d flag don't work unless -here is provided.

Technical Details

The MozillaBuild package contains other software prerequisites necessary for building Mozilla, including an MSYS2 environment, Mercurial, Python, NSIS, and UPX, as well as optional but useful tools such as wget and emacs. Note that the "UNIX-like" environment provided by MozillaBuild is only really useful for building and committing to the Mozilla source. Many command line tools you would expect in a modern Linux distribution are not present, and it's not possible to install them with a package manager.

MozillaBuild does not modify the Windows registry.

Command Prompt Tips and Caveats

• To paste into this window, you must right-click on the window's title bar, move your cursor to the “Edit” menu, and click “Paste”. You can also set “Quick Edit Mode” in the “Properties” menu and right-click the window to paste your selection.
• The MSYS2 root directory is located at/c/mozilla-build/msys2/ (assuming the default installation directory).
  • For MozillaBuild 3.4 and older, the MSYS root directory can be found at /c/mozilla-build/msys/ instead.

Release Notes

• MozillaBuild 3.4
• MozillaBuild 3.3
• MozillaBuild 3.2
• MozillaBuild 3.1.1
• MozillaBuild 3.1
• MozillaBuild 3.0
• MozillaBuild 2.2.0
• MozillaBuild 2.1.0
• MozillaBuild 2.0.0
• MozillaBuild 1.11.0
• MozillaBuild 1.10.0
• MozillaBuild 1.9.0
• MozillaBuild 1.8.0
• MozillaBuild 1.7
• MozillaBuild 1.6
• MozillaBuild 1.5.1: added YASM for WebM code in Firefox 4.
• MozillaBuild 1.5: Mercurial 1.5.4, Python 2.6.5, and support for Visual Studio 2010.
• MozillaBuild 1.4: Windows x64 compatibility and other.
• MozillaBuild 1.3
• MozillaBuild:ReleaseNotes:1.2

There are no release notes for 1.1 and below.

Historic Versions

Old versions of MozillaBuild can also be found on ftp.mozilla.org.