\page winbin Installing and Using netCDF-C Libraries in a Windows Environment

There are several development environments available for programmers who develop on Windows. 

* Microsoft Visual Studio 
* MSYS/MinGW
* Cygwin

For the latter two, the Linux/Unix build instructions may be used. For the former build environment, you may download using the Windows build instructions, or you may download the pre-built netCDF-C libraries from this page.

Users who prefer to build the netCDF-C libraries from source in a Windows environment using Microsoft Visual Studio are referred to \ref netCDF-CMake

# Getting pre-built netCDF-C Libraries for Visual Studio

These libraries can be used with Visual Studio 2010 projects.  The downloads are installer packages which contain the netCDF-C libraries and utilities (ncgen, ncgen3, ncdump and nccopy), as well as the associated dependencies.  

## Latest Stable Release (netCDF-C 4.3.0)

Configuration		| 32-bit 						| 64-bit |
:-------------------|:--------							|:-------|
netCDF 3		| [netCDF4.3.1-NC3-32.exe][r1]		| [netCDF4.3.1-NC3-64.exe][r5] 
netCDF3+DAP		| [netCDF4.3.1-NC3-DAP-32.exe][r2]	| [netCDF4.3.1-NC3-DAP-64.exe][r6]
netCDF4			| [netCDF4.3.1-NC4-32.exe][r3]		| [netCDF4.3.1-NC4-64.exe][r7]
netCDF4+DAP		| [netCDF4.3.1-NC4-DAP-32.exe][r4]	| [netCDF4.3.1-NC4-DAP-64.exe][r8]



## Latest Release Candidate (netCDF-C 4.3.1-rc6)

Configuration		| 32-bit 						| 64-bit |
:-------------------|:--------							|:-------|
netCDF 3		| [netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC3-32.exe][rc1]		| [netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC3-64.exe][rc6] 
netCDF3+DAP		| [netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC3-DAP-32.exe][rc2]	| [netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC3-DAP-64.exe][rc6]
netCDF4			| [netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC4-32.exe][rc3]		| [netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC4-64.exe][rc7]
netCDF4+DAP		| [netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC4-DAP-32.exe][rc4]	| [netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC4-DAP-64.exe][rc8]

# Using the netCDF-C Libraries with Visual Studio
In order to use the netcdf libraries, you must ensure that the .dll files (along with any dependencies from deps/shared/bin) are on the system path. In order to compile a program using these libraries, you must first link your program against the appropriate 'import' (.lib) libraries.  

## Install Hierarchy

When installed, the netCDF libraries are placed in the specified locations, along with the netCDF-C utilities and 

<center>
<IMG SRC="InstallTreeWindows.jpg" />
</center>

# Notes

*The following points should be considered when using the netCDF-C libraries on Windows.*

1. When building the netCDF-C libraries with netCDF4 support, using the 'debug' libraries may cause extraneous warnings. These warnings are related to cross-dll memory management, and appear to be harmless. You can safely ignore them by using the 'release' libraries. [NCF-220]


[r1]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-NC3-32.exe
[r2]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-NC3-DAP-32.exe
[r3]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-NC4-32.exe
[r4]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-NC4-DAP-32.exe
[r5]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-NC3-64.exe
[r6]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-NC3-DAP-64.exe
[r7]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-NC4-64.exe
[r8]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-NC4-DAP-64.exe


[rc1]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC3-32.exe
[rc2]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC3-DAP-32.exe
[rc3]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC4-32.exe
[rc4]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC4-DAP-32.exe
[rc6]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC3-64.exe
[rc6]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC3-DAP-64.exe
[rc7]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC4-64.exe
[rc8]: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/netcdf/win_netcdf/netCDF4.3.1-rc6-NC4-DAP-64.exe
