[MSYS2](https://msys2.org/) distribution provides Zed as a package [mingw-w64-zed](https://packages.msys2.org/base/mingw-w64-zed). The package is available for UCRT64, MINGW64 and CLANG64 repositories. To download it, run

```sh
pacman -Syu
pacman -S $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-zed
```

then you can run `zeditor` CLI. Editor executable is installed under `$MINGW_PREFIX/lib/zed` directory

You can see the [build script](https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/blob/master/mingw-w64-zed/PKGBUILD) for more details on build process.

> Please, report any issue in [msys2/MINGW-packages/issues](https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+zed) first.

Note that `collab` is not supported for MSYS2.

## Troubleshooting

### Setting `RUSTFLAGS` env var breaks builds

If you set the `RUSTFLAGS` env var, it will override the `rustflags` settings in `.cargo/config.toml` which is required to properly build Zed.

Since these settings can vary from time to time, the build errors you receive may vary from linker errors, to other stranger errors.

If you'd like to add extra rust flags, you may do 1 of the following in `.cargo/config.toml`:

Add your flags in the build section

```toml
[build]
rustflags = ["-C", "symbol-mangling-version=v0", "--cfg", "tokio_unstable"]
```

Add your flags in the windows target section

```toml
[target.'cfg(target_os = "windows")']
rustflags = [
    "--cfg",
    "windows_slim_errors",
    "-C",
    "target-feature=+crt-static",
]
```

Or, you can create a new `.cargo/config.toml` in the same folder as the Zed repo (see below). This is particularly useful if you are doing CI builds since you don't have to edit the original `.cargo/config.toml`.

```
upper_dir
├── .cargo          // <-- Make this folder
│   └── config.toml // <-- Make this file
└── zed
    ├── .cargo
    │   └── config.toml
    └── crates
        ├── assistant
        └── ...
```

In the new (above) `.cargo/config.toml`, if we wanted to add `--cfg gles` to our rustflags, it would look like this

```toml
[target.'cfg(all())']
rustflags = ["--cfg", "gles"]
```

### Cargo errors claiming that a dependency is using unstable features

Try `cargo clean` and `cargo build`.

### `STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION`

This error can happen if you are using the "rust-lld.exe" linker. Consider trying a different linker.

If you are using a global config, consider moving the Zed repository to a nested directory and add a `.cargo/config.toml` with a custom linker config in the parent directory.

See this issue for more information [#12041](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/12041)