This document contains instructions on how to build and install Wireshark on Windows
using GCC and MinGW-w64 with the MSYS2 distribution.

The MSYS2 installer can be downloaded from https://www.msys2.org.

Wireshark is available as an MSYS2 binary package[1]. It can be installed using pacman,
for example using the UCRT64 shell:

    $ pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-wireshark

If you wish to build wireshark from source code keep reading.

MSYS2 comes with different environments/subsystems and the first thing you
have to decide is which one to use. The differences among the environments
are mainly environment variables, default compilers/linkers, architecture,
system libraries used etc. If you are unsure, go with UCRT64.

How to build Wireshark from source:

1. Open the shell for the selected 64-bit environment.

2. Download the Wireshark source code using Git, if you haven't done so already,
   and cd into that directory.

3. Install needed dependencies:

    $ tools/msys2-setup.sh --install-all

4. Build using CMake + Ninja:

    $ mkdir build && cd build
    $ cmake -DENABLE_WERROR=Off ..
    $ ninja
    $ ninja test        # optional, to run the test suite
    $ ninja install     # optional, install to the MSYS2 shell path

The application should be launched using the same shell.

How to build an NSIS stand-alone binary installer:

1. Follow the instructions above to compile Wireshark from source.

2. Build the Wireshark User Guide.

    $ ninja user_guide_html

3. Download Npcap and USBpcap and copy them to ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/packaging/nsis.

4. Build the installer

    $ ninja wireshark_nsis_prep
    $ ninja wireshark_nsis

If successful the installer can be found in ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/packaging/nsis.

Alternatively you can also use the PKGBUILD included in the Wireshark
source distribution to compile Wireshark into a binary package that can be
installed using pacman[3].

The official Wireshark Windows installer is compiled using Microsoft Visual
Studio (MSVC). Currently the MSYS2 build has the following limitations compared to
the build using MSVC:

* The Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) extcap cannot be compiled using MinGW-w64.

* Lua version is 5.1 (MSVC uses Lua 5.2) and does not have custom UTF-8 patches[2].

* Enhanced Kerberos dissection with decryption is not available.

* AirPcap is not available. AirPcap is EOL and currently there is no plan to
  add support for it with MinGW-w64 builds.

References:

[1]https://packages.msys2.org/base/mingw-w64-wireshark
[2]https://github.com/Lekensteyn/lua-unicode
[3]https://www.msys2.org/wiki/Creating-Packages/