Installation Advice

[Dichlorobenzene]

I just installed MQ2 for the first time, and since I ran into some snags I figured I'd add a few details that were pertinent. I'm not going to add them to the Wiki directly since there are posts about not making it too easy, but I figured somebody might find them useful. This is meant as a supplement to the official instructions.

Download the free VisualStudio Community 2017
Install it with "Universal Windows Platform development", and "Desktop development with C++".
Click on "Individual Components" at the top of the page. Scroll down to "Compilers, build tools, and runtimes". Select "Windows XP support for C++". Scroll down to "SDKs, libraries, and frameworks". Select "Graphics Tools Windows 8.1 SDK" and "Windows 8.1 SDK".
Select Install or Modify.

Open up MacroQuest2.sln after unpacking the ZIP file and running MQ2auth.exe.

The Solution Explorer should open up on the right with the different portions. Right click on the solution and select "retarget". Select the 8.1 SDK option. Do this a couple times as it seems to find more that it needs to retarget.

Select Build Solution (or Ctrl-Shift-B). Let it go through and see what errors you find. Look at the plugins on the right - do they say 'unavailable'? If so right click on them and see if you need to download something more for them to be workable.

Keep Rebuilding until error free, and enjoy MQ2.

Now to find some more plugins/macros....