Building GridPACK on Windows is not for the faint of heart.

System Preparation

The following are available as native Windows applications and can just be installed in the normal Windows way:

Visual C++ in some form.
- The "free" ones, Visual Studio Express and Community, should work.
Windows SDK
Usually, this is just installed with Visual Studio
CMake is required
A minimal Cygwin installation is necessary.
Cygwin is required to build, and test for, PETSc. If the system has a Cygwin installation that is being used, it would probably be best to make another installation for GridPACK installation exclusively.
- Minimum required packages:
  - Base
  - Python
- Rename /usr/bin/link.exe so it does not interfere with Windows LINK.EXE
- If you want to use a Cygwin shell to build and/or debug GridPACK applications:
  - Do not install a compiler set.
  - Do not install CMake.
Microsoft MPI
This appears to be the only modern implementation available for Windows. In the past, the OpenMPI and MPICH implementation were available for Windows, but no more.
(optional) MS-MPI Debugger Extension is useful for debugging problem with parallel programs.

Building on Windows