The following projects are included with the lz5 distribution:

• VS2010 - Visual Studio 2010 project (which also works well with Visual Studio 2012, 2013, 2015)

1. Install Visual Studio e.g. VS 2015 Community Edition (it's free).
2. Download the latest version of lz5 from https://github.com/inikep/lz5/releases
3. Decompress ZIP archive.
4. Go to decompressed directory then to visual then VS2010 and open lz5.sln
5. Visual Studio will ask about converting VS2010 project to VS2015 and you should agree.
6. Change Debug to Release and if you have 64-bit Windows change also Win32 to x64.
7. Press F7 on keyboard or select BUILD from the menu bar and choose Build Solution.
8. If compilation will be fine a compiled executable will be in visual\VS2010\bin\x64_Release\lz5.exe

The Visual Studio solution file lz5.sln contains many projects that will be compiled to the visual\VS2010\bin\$(Platform)_$(Configuration) directory. For example lz5 set to x64 and Release will be compiled to visual\VS2010\bin\x64_Release\lz5.exe. The solution file contains the following projects:

• lz5 : Command Line Utility, supporting gzip-like arguments
• datagen : Synthetic and parametrable data generator, for tests
• frametest : Test tool that checks lz5frame integrity on target platform
• fullbench : Precisely measure speed for each lz5 inner functions
• fuzzer : Test tool, to check lz5 integrity on target platform
• liblz5 : A static LZ5 library compiled to liblz5_static.lib
• liblz5-dll : A dynamic LZ5 library (DLL) compiled to liblz5.dll with the import library liblz5.lib
• fullbench-dll : The fullbench program compiled with the import library; the executable requires LZ5 DLL

The header files lib\lz5.h, lib\lz5hc.h, lib\lz5frame.h and the import library visual\VS2010\bin\$(Platform)_$(Configuration)\liblz5.lib are required to compile a project using Visual C++.

1. The path to header files should be added to Additional Include Directories that can be found in Project Properties of Visual Studio IDE in the C/C++ Property Pages on the General page.
2. The import library has to be added to Additional Dependencies that can be found in Project Properties in the Linker Property Pages on the Input page. If one will provide only the name liblz5.lib without a full path to the library then the directory has to be added to Linker\General\Additional Library Directories.

The compiled executable will require LZ5 DLL which is available at visual\VS2010\bin\$(Platform)_$(Configuration)\liblz5.dll.