Finally, thanks to help from @veikkoeeva, we have a working test build of zcash for Windows!
I’m still working on the metrics screen that outputs the ASCII art (ugh, lots of “#ifdef WIN32” going on there!), and it has an issue verifying all of the block chain (it hangs after block 395!), but we’ve got an issue opened about that with ZcashCo (however if you notice anything especially weird about block 396 that I missed, please shout it out!).
As soon as the sync issue is taken care of, I’m going to start work with @zab on integrating it with the Zcash Swing Wallet by @vaklinov, even if I don’t have all the ASCII art issues solved yet, as it doesn’t matter in that use case (it’ll be in daemon mode and the rpc interface works fine).
HOWEVER, I’m woefully short of funds, I’m down to less than US$50 in the bank. We’re inches (centimeters? 
) away from Zcash for Windows, with a GUI, no less, which I think we’ll all agree will help the entire Zcash ecosystem and boost it’s value for everyone. So PLEASE help out at any level that you can! Donation addresses for various cryptocurrencies and via Paypal at my website linked at the end of this post.
Thanks again,
David Mercer
Tucson, AZ
https://zcash.mercerweiss.com/index.html#Donations
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Any new news on the build progress?
still working on libsnark cross-platform issues…there’s something still lurking in the code for it that isn’t playing nice on Windows that I’m trying to track down
Thank you for your work… i wish i knew enough to be of actual help…
Well, seeing as how I don’t have a day job and work 100% for donations and am always on the edge financially, any donation, no matter how small, helps a lot (kids to feed and all that!). When the Zcash Foundation non-profit is up, that should help, but that’s still some months away (ugh, lawyers!)
Paypal, bitcoin, zcash, other altcoins, addresses to send any of those are at:
https://zcash.mercerweiss.com/index.html#Donations
Thanks!
-David Mercer
Tucson, AZ
zcash gui for windows or will it be possible for me to access zcash wallet from CMD line window on windows in the near future?
As soon as I have the command line version working, the version with a gui will be out within a day or two!
The development and testing process on Windows with libsnark, where the remaining problems are, is particularly slow and painful, as its an external package and the build process is more involved, and is slower on Windows than linux or Mac.
Its down to some niggling cross-platform compatibility issues in that one part of the code, so once we find it, a release will happen very quickly, as I know Zcash on Windows is THE big thing people want right now and that that will make it adopted more widely.
Who are you sir? Are you part of Zcash dev team?
Yes, personally I am waiting for the windows CMD line release. I dont want a GUI for windows. However I think GUI will be great for people. I am looking forward to cli wallet on windows for cmd line interface!
Can we expect that in the next month or so?
What other projects (if any) is libsnark used in? Are they all non-windows? How much of a bribe would it take for the OpenBSD guys to reimplement libsnark and ‘civilise’ it similar to their effort with LibreSSL?
btw Is Python part of your programming repertoire?
My last day job was 2.5 years in DevOps at a python shop, so I know a smattering
Heh, I’m kinda doing that right now, getting ready to submit a PR upstream to libsnark that removes all instances of “long”, “unsigned long” and similar and replaces them with C++11 fixed bit width types
Hi there, no, I’m not a ZcashCo (Zcash Electric Coin Company) employee, I’m a volunteer. I’ve known @zooko and @daira online in multiple different ways for over a decade, and had been keeping an eye on the progress of Zcash since @zooko started the project. I was a “bitcoin skeptic” back when it started, although I did bug Satoshi over email to start the first dedicated bitcoin mailing list. I got pulled away from keeping an eye on it (babies! oy!), and so missed the boat. Zcash adds the privacy features I always though bitcoin should have if it were going to “take over the world”, as it were, as I’ve been circulating in “cypherpunk” circles since the early 1990’s. So I’m in this as a “true believer”, as it were, for the social change aspects more than the money.
I ported Zcash to Mac (first non-linux version) and to the amd64 processor (first non-Intel), and I have a small amount of code in the main zcash codebase right now. That’s going to go up a bit when I get all the changes needed by my ports in shape for it to be merged into the main Zcash codebase. After 20 years in the trenches of VC funded startups “making other people rich”, as they say, I was done with having a corporate umbrella (other than perhaps my own!) over my head, so I’m living the (dubious?) “open source dream” of working for donations and random customization contracts, all on zcash and related tech.
Since you’ve expressed interest in a Windows cli version, I’ll make sure to release that as a standalone zip file sooner rather than later when its ready. I’d imagine (and hope!) that it will take less than a month, but what percentage of my time I can pour into the Windows port is determined by the flow of donations I get. Otherwise I may get diverted for a while by working on contract work I’d rather not be doing to pay the rent.
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re: Python: How much work do you think would be involved to create a Zcash version of Electrum?
I wouldn’t expect it to support shielded transactions but a different issue is that there are enough people operating Electrum-Zcash servers… Although that is something I would consider doing if the software existed.
I dunno, I don’t have time to poke at it right now, I’ve got enough plates spinning as is!