Compiling NEURON from sources under MSWin

These are the steps for compiling NEURON from sources under MSWin.
It's easier than it looks.

Install the CYGWIN development environment
Full installation of NEURON with InterViews

1. Install the CYGWIN development environment

In order to compile NEURON from sources under MSWin, you need the CYGWIN development environment.

Go to www.cygwin.com and press the "Install Cygwin now" icon. When you get to the tool that allows you to select what components are installed, you will need to make the following changes to the preselected defaults:

Archive: Get zip and unzip
Development: Change to Install
Net: Get openssh
Shells: Get rxvt

Hints

1. It is very convenient to have an rxvt icon on the desktop so you can quickly create several shell terminals. In the icon properties, use the target

  C:\cygwin\bin\rxvt.exe -sl 1000 -e bash

Then every click on this icon will bring up a bash shell with 1000 lines of scrolling.

2. If your windows login has spaces, you will have endless difficulty because UNIX treats them as command line argument separators. Since my windows login was "Michael Hines", I created a c:/cygwin/home/hines directory and put a .bashrc file in the c:/cygwin/home/Michael\ Hines directory with the contents

  export PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH
  export HOME=/home/hines
  export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH
  cd
  export CVS_RSH=ssh

The instructions past this point assume that you have successfully installed and are running CYGWIN.

2. Full installation of NEURON with InterViews

This is very similar to installing from sources under UNIX.

1. Create a neuron directory in your home directory, put the gzipped source files in it, and jump in after them.

  cd $HOME
  mkdir neuron
  mv iv-mm.tar.gz neuron
  mv nrn-nn.tar.gz neuron
  cd neuron

2. Install InterViews

  tar xzf iv-mm.tar.gz
  # renaming the new directory to iv makes life simpler later on
  mv iv-mm iv
  cd iv
  ./configure --prefix=`pwd`
  make
  make install

3. Install NEURON

  cd $HOME/neuron
  tar xzf nrn-nn.tar.gz
  # renaming the new directory to nrn makes life simpler later on
  mv nrn-n.n nrn
  cd nrn
  ./configure --prefix=`pwd`
  make
  # unlike the UNIX installation, we DO NOT do make install

4. Want to make your own nrnsetup.exe?

This step is completely optional.
If you want to make your own nrnsetup.exe file, then install the installer builder from http://nsis.sourceforge.net/
Get at least the nsis20b3.exe version.

5. Make NEURON

Type

  make mswin

If you have the installer builder, then the process will end with the installer builder asking if you want to test the installer. Otherwise you will be left with all the necessary files in c:\marshalnrn , and you can move this directory and create or reuse your own icons and file properties.