Solution and project files to build the Bitcoin Core applications (except Qt dependent ones) with Visual Studio 2017 can be found in the build_msvc directory.
Building with Visual Studio is an alternative to the Linux based [cross-compiler build](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/build-windows.md).
Dependencies
---------------------
A number of [open source libraries](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/dependencies.md) are required in order to be able to build Bitcoin.
Options for installing the dependencies in a Visual Studio compatible manner are:
- Use Microsoft's [vcpkg](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/vcpkg) to download the source packages and build locally. This is the recommended approach.
- Download the source code, build each dependency, add the required include paths, link libraries and binary tools to the Visual Studio project files.
- Use [nuget](https://www.nuget.org/) packages with the understanding that any binary files have been compiled by an untrusted third party.
The external dependencies required for the Visual Studio build are (see [dependencies.md](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/dependencies.md) for more info):