Cross-Compiling Windows DLLs on Linux with OpenVINO

[max-my]

Hello OpenVINO Team,

I'm reaching out to ask if OpenVINO supports cross-compiling Windows dynamic libraries (DLLs) on a Linux system. We're encountering issues with Windows-specific synchronization functions when compiling with MinGW-w64.

Here are the CMake options we're using:

cmake \
  -G Ninja \
  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../cmake/toolchains/mingw-w64.toolchain.cmake \
  -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON \
  -S .. \
  -B . \
  -DENABLE_API_VALIDATOR=OFF \
  -DENABLE_PYTHON=ON \
  -DPYTHON_MODULE_EXTENSION=.cpython-310-x86_64-linux-gnu.so \
  -DENABLE_JS=OFF \

cmake --build . --parallel 16 --config Release

Here are the errors we're met:

/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp:45:5: error: ‘InitializeSRWLock’ was not declared in this scope; did you mean ‘InitializeSid’?
   45 |     InitializeSRWLock(&impl);
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      |     InitializeSid
/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp: In member function ‘void dnnl::impl::utils::rw_mutex_t::lock_read()’:
/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp:54:5: error: ‘AcquireSRWLockShared’ was not declared in this scope
   54 |     AcquireSRWLockShared(&impl);
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp: In member function ‘void dnnl::impl::utils::rw_mutex_t::lock_write()’:
/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp:63:5: error: ‘AcquireSRWLockExclusive’ was not declared in this scope
   63 |     AcquireSRWLockExclusive(&impl);
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp: In member function ‘void dnnl::impl::utils::rw_mutex_t::unlock_read()’:
/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp:72:5: error: ‘ReleaseSRWLockShared’ was not declared in this scope
   72 |     ReleaseSRWLockShared(&impl);
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp: In member function ‘void dnnl::impl::utils::rw_mutex_t::unlock_write()’:
/workspace/openvino/src/plugins/intel_cpu/thirdparty/onednn/src/common/rw_mutex.cpp:81:5: error: ‘ReleaseSRWLockExclusive’ was not declared in this scope
   81 |     ReleaseSRWLockExclusive(&impl);
      |     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Any guidance on cross-compiling for Windows or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Ganesh-403]

I couldn't find documentation that MinGW-w64 cross-compilation is an officially supported build configuration. The Windows build documentation focuses on Visual Studio/MSVC. Could you clarify whether you're trying to build the entire OpenVINO runtime or only your own plugin/application against OpenVINO? If it's the former, it would also help to know whether the project officially supports the MinGW-w64 toolchain.

[dev-jinwoohong]

For these specific errors, check the effective _WIN32_WINNT value in your MinGW compile command. MinGW's synchapi.h puts all five missing SRW functions behind _WIN32_WINNT >= 0x0600.

For a Windows 10 target, you can set the target version explicitly in your toolchain file, then configure in a fresh build directory:

set(CMAKE_C_FLAGS_INIT "-D_WIN32_WINNT=0x0A00 -DWINVER=0x0A00")
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_INIT "-D_WIN32_WINNT=0x0A00 -DWINVER=0x0A00")

These are the Windows 10 target values. Check that the actual rw_mutex.cpp compile command does not override them. This addresses declaration visibility when the target version was too low; the complete MinGW build still needs validation.

Also, if you only need the runtime DLLs, set ENABLE_PYTHON=OFF and remove PYTHON_MODULE_EXTENSION. Your current .cpython-310-x86_64-linux-gnu.so override describes a Linux Python extension. Windows Python extensions use .pyd, with a matching Windows Python build environment.