Visual Studio build configuration for Bitcoin Core

build_msvc/README.md

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+Building Bitcoin Core with Visual Studio
+========================================
+
+Introduction
+---------------------
+Solution and project files to build the Bitcoin Core applications (except Qt dependent ones) with Visual Studio 2017 can be found in the build_msvc directory.
+
+Building with Visual Studio is an alternative to the Linux based [cross-compiler build](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/build-windows.md).
+
+Dependencies
+---------------------
+A number of [open source libraries](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/dependencies.md) are required in order to be able to build Bitcoin.
+
+Options for installing the dependencies in a Visual Studio compatible manner are:
+
+- Use Microsoft's [vcpkg](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/vcpkg) to download the source packages and build locally. This is the recommended approach.
+- Download the source code, build each dependency, add the required include paths, link libraries and binary tools to the Visual Studio project files.
+- Use [nuget](https://www.nuget.org/) packages with the understanding that any binary files have been compiled by an untrusted third party.
+
+The external dependencies required for the Visual Studio build are (see the [dependencies doc](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/dependencies.md) for versions):
+
+- Berkeley DB,
+- OpenSSL,
+- Boost,
+- libevent,
+- ZeroMQ
+
+Additional dependencies required from the [bitcoin-core](https://github.com/bitcoin-core) github repository are:
+- SECP256K1,
+- LevelDB
+
+Building
+---------------------
+The instructions below use vcpkg to install the dependencies.
+
+- Clone and vcpkg from the [github repository](https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg) and install as per the instructions in the main README.md.
+- Install the required packages (replace x64 with x86 as required):
+- Install the required dependencies with vcpkg:
+
+```
+    PS >.\vcpkg install boost:x64-windows-static `
+    libevent:x64-windows-static `
+    openssl:x64-windows-static `
+    zeromq:x64-windows-static `
+    berkeleydb:x64-windows-static `
+    secp256k1:x64-windows-static `
+    leveldb:x64-windows-static
+```
+
+- Build in Visual Studio.