Remove MSVC scripts

This commit removes all the scripts located in src/tools/msvc/ to build
PostgreSQL with Visual Studio on Windows, meson becoming the recommended
way to achieve that.  The scripts held some information that is still
relevant with meson, information kept and moved to better locations.
Comments that referred directly to the scripts are removed.

All the documentation still relevant that was in install-windows.sgml
has been moved to installation.sgml under a new subsection for Visual.
All the content specific to the scripts is removed.  Some adjustments
for the documentation are planned in a follow-up set of changes.

Author: Michael Paquier
Reviewed-by: Peter Eisentraut, Andres Freund
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/ZQzp_VMJcerM1Cs_@paquier.xyz

5 files changed, 294 insertions, 614 deletions

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml
index bd42b3ef16b..bb4926b887a 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/filelist.sgml
@@ -39,7 +39,6 @@
 <!ENTITY installbin    SYSTEM "install-binaries.sgml">
 <!ENTITY installation  SYSTEM "installation.sgml">
 <!ENTITY targets-meson  SYSTEM "targets-meson.sgml">
-<!ENTITY installw      SYSTEM "install-windows.sgml">
 <!ENTITY maintenance   SYSTEM "maintenance.sgml">
 <!ENTITY manage-ag     SYSTEM "manage-ag.sgml">
 <!ENTITY monitoring    SYSTEM "monitoring.sgml">
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/install-windows.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/install-windows.sgml
deleted file mode 100644
index 27cb82ba14e..00000000000
--- a/doc/src/sgml/install-windows.sgml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,588 +0,0 @@
-<!-- doc/src/sgml/install-windows.sgml -->
-
-<chapter id="install-windows">
- <title>Installation from Source Code on <productname>Windows</productname></title>
-
- <indexterm>
-  <primary>installation</primary>
-  <secondary>on Windows</secondary>
- </indexterm>
-
- <para>
-  It is recommended that most users download the binary distribution for
-  Windows, available as a graphical installer package
-  from the <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> website at
-  <ulink url="https://www.postgresql.org/download/"></ulink>. Building from source
-  is only intended for people developing <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>
-  or extensions.
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  There are several different ways of building PostgreSQL on
-  <productname>Windows</productname>. The simplest way to build with
-  Microsoft tools is to install <productname>Visual Studio 2022</productname>
-  and use the included compiler. It is also possible to build with the full
-  <productname>Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 to 2022</productname>.
-  In some cases that requires the installation of the
-  <productname>Windows SDK</productname> in addition to the compiler.
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  It is also possible to build PostgreSQL using the GNU compiler tools
-  provided by <productname>MinGW</productname>, or using
-  <productname>Cygwin</productname> for older versions of
-  <productname>Windows</productname>.
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  Building using <productname>MinGW</productname> or
-  <productname>Cygwin</productname> uses the normal build system, see
-  <xref linkend="installation"/> and the specific notes in
-  <xref linkend="installation-notes-mingw"/> and <xref linkend="installation-notes-cygwin"/>.
-  To produce native 64 bit binaries in these environments, use the tools from
-  <productname>MinGW-w64</productname>. These tools can also be used to
-  cross-compile for 32 bit and 64 bit <productname>Windows</productname>
-  targets on other hosts, such as <productname>Linux</productname> and
-  <productname>macOS</productname>.
-  <productname>Cygwin</productname> is not recommended for running a
-  production server, and it should only be used for running on
-  older versions of <productname>Windows</productname> where
-  the native build does not work. The official
-  binaries are built using <productname>Visual Studio</productname>.
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  Native builds of <application>psql</application> don't support command
-  line editing. The <productname>Cygwin</productname> build does support
-  command line editing, so it should be used where psql is needed for
-  interactive use on  <productname>Windows</productname>.
- </para>
-
- <sect1 id="install-windows-full">
-  <title>Building with <productname>Visual C++</productname> or the
-  <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname></title>
-
- <para>
-  PostgreSQL can be built using the Visual C++ compiler suite from Microsoft.
-  These compilers can be either from <productname>Visual Studio</productname>,
-  <productname>Visual Studio Express</productname> or some versions of the
-  <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname>. If you do not already have a
-  <productname>Visual Studio</productname> environment set up, the easiest
-  ways are to use the compilers from
-  <productname>Visual Studio 2022</productname> or those in the
-  <productname>Windows SDK 10</productname>, which are both free downloads
-  from Microsoft.
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds are possible with the Microsoft Compiler suite.
-  32-bit PostgreSQL builds are possible with
-  <productname>Visual Studio 2015</productname> to
-  <productname>Visual Studio 2022</productname>,
-  as well as standalone Windows SDK releases 10 and above.
-  64-bit PostgreSQL builds are supported with
-  <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname> version 10 and above or
-  <productname>Visual Studio 2015</productname> and above.
-   <!--
-       For 2015 requirements:
-       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/vs2015-sysrequirements-vs
-       For 2017 requirements:
-       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/vs2017-system-requirements-vs
-       For 2019 requirements:
-       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2019/system-requirements
-       For 2022 requirements:
-       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2022/system-requirements
-   -->
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  The tools for building using <productname>Visual C++</productname> or
-  <productname>Platform SDK</productname> are in the
-  <filename>src\tools\msvc</filename> directory. When building, make sure
-  there are no tools from <productname>MinGW</productname> or
-  <productname>Cygwin</productname> present in your system PATH. Also, make
-  sure you have all the required Visual C++ tools available in the PATH. In
-  <productname>Visual Studio</productname>, start the
-  <application>Visual Studio Command Prompt</application>.
-  If you wish to build a 64-bit version, you must use the 64-bit version of
-  the command, and vice versa.
-  Starting with <productname>Visual Studio 2017</productname> this can be
-  done from the command line using <command>VsDevCmd.bat</command>, see
-  <command>-help</command> for the available options and their default values.
-  <command>vsvars32.bat</command> is available in
-  <productname>Visual Studio 2015</productname> and earlier versions for the
-  same purpose.
-  From the <application>Visual Studio Command Prompt</application>, you can
-  change the targeted CPU architecture, build type, and target OS by using the
-  <command>vcvarsall.bat</command> command, e.g.,
-  <command>vcvarsall.bat x64 10.0.10240.0</command> to target Windows 10
-  with a 64-bit release build. See <command>-help</command> for the other
-  options of <command>vcvarsall.bat</command>. All commands should be run from
-  the <filename>src\tools\msvc</filename> directory.
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  Before you build, you can create the file <filename>config.pl</filename>
-  to reflect any configuration options you want to change, or the paths to
-  any third party libraries to use. The complete configuration is determined
-  by first reading and parsing the file <filename>config_default.pl</filename>,
-  and then apply any changes from <filename>config.pl</filename>. For example,
-  to specify the location of your <productname>Python</productname> installation,
-  put the following in <filename>config.pl</filename>:
-<programlisting>
-$config->{python} = 'c:\python310';
-</programlisting>
-  You only need to specify those parameters that are different from what's in
-  <filename>config_default.pl</filename>.
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  If you need to set any other environment variables, create a file called
-  <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> and put the required commands there. For
-  example, to add the path for bison when it's not in the PATH, create a file
-  containing:
-<programlisting>
-$ENV{PATH}=$ENV{PATH} . ';c:\some\where\bison\bin';
-</programlisting>
- </para>
-
- <para>
-  To pass additional command line arguments to the Visual Studio build
-  command (msbuild or vcbuild):
-<programlisting>
-$ENV{MSBFLAGS}="/m";
-</programlisting>
- </para>
-
- <sect2 id="install-windows-full-requirements">
-  <title>Requirements</title>
-  <para>
-   The following additional products are required to build
-   <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. Use the
-   <filename>config.pl</filename> file to specify which directories the libraries
-   are available in.
-
-   <variablelist>
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      If your build environment doesn't ship with a supported version of the
-      <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname> it
-      is recommended that you upgrade to the latest version (currently
-      version 10), available for download from
-      <ulink url="https://www.microsoft.com/download"></ulink>.
-     </para>
-     <para>
-      You must always include the
-      <application>Windows Headers and Libraries</application> part of the SDK.
-      If you install a <productname>Windows SDK</productname>
-      including the <application>Visual C++ Compilers</application>,
-      you don't need <productname>Visual Studio</productname> to build.
-      Note that as of Version 8.0a the Windows SDK no longer ships with a
-      complete command-line build environment.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>ActiveState Perl</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      ActiveState Perl is required to run the build generation scripts. MinGW
-      or Cygwin Perl will not work. It must also be present in the PATH.
-      Binaries can be downloaded from
-      <ulink url="https://www.activestate.com"></ulink>
-      (Note: version 5.14 or later is required,
-      the free Standard Distribution is sufficient).
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-   </variablelist>
-  </para>
-  <para>
-   The following additional products are not required to get started,
-   but are required to build the complete package. Use the
-   <filename>config.pl</filename> file to specify which directories the libraries
-   are available in.
-
-   <variablelist>
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>ActiveState Tcl</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for building <application>PL/Tcl</application> (Note: version
-      8.4 is required, the free Standard Distribution is sufficient).
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>Bison</productname> and
-      <productname>Flex</productname></term>
-     <listitem>
-     <para>
-      <productname>Bison</productname> and <productname>Flex</productname> are
-      required.  Only <productname>Bison</productname> versions 2.3 and later
-      will work. <productname>Flex</productname> must be version 2.5.35 or later.
-     </para>
-
-     <para>
-      Both <productname>Bison</productname> and <productname>Flex</productname>
-      are included in the <productname>msys</productname> tool suite, available
-      from <ulink url="http://www.mingw.org/wiki/MSYS"></ulink> as part of the
-      <productname>MinGW</productname> compiler suite.
-     </para>
-
-     <para>
-      You will need to add the directory containing
-      <filename>flex.exe</filename> and <filename>bison.exe</filename> to the
-      PATH environment variable in <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> unless
-      they are already in PATH. In the case of MinGW, the directory is the
-      <filename>\msys\1.0\bin</filename> subdirectory of your MinGW
-      installation directory.
-     </para>
-
-     <note>
-      <para>
-        The Bison distribution from GnuWin32 appears to have a bug that
-        causes Bison to malfunction when installed in a directory with
-        spaces in the name, such as the default location on English
-        installations <filename>C:\Program Files\GnuWin32</filename>.
-        Consider installing into <filename>C:\GnuWin32</filename> or use the
-        NTFS short name path to GnuWin32 in your PATH environment setting
-        (e.g., <filename>C:\PROGRA~1\GnuWin32</filename>).
-       </para>
-     </note>
-
-     </listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>Diff</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Diff is required to run the regression tests, and can be downloaded
-      from <ulink url="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net"></ulink>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>Gettext</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Gettext is required to build with NLS support, and can be downloaded
-      from <ulink url="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net"></ulink>. Note that binaries,
-      dependencies and developer files are all needed.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>MIT Kerberos</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for GSSAPI authentication support. MIT Kerberos can be
-      downloaded from
-      <ulink url="https://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/dist/index.html"></ulink>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>libxml2</productname> and
-      <productname>libxslt</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for XML support. Binaries can be downloaded from
-      <ulink url="https://zlatkovic.com/pub/libxml"></ulink> or source from
-      <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org"></ulink>. Note that libxml2 requires iconv,
-      which is available from the same download location.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>LZ4</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for supporting <productname>LZ4</productname> compression.
-      Binaries and source can be downloaded from
-      <ulink url="https://github.com/lz4/lz4/releases"></ulink>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>Zstandard</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for supporting <productname>Zstandard</productname> compression.
-      Binaries and source can be downloaded from
-      <ulink url="https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases"></ulink>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>OpenSSL</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for SSL support. Binaries can be downloaded from
-      <ulink url="https://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html"></ulink>
-      or source from <ulink url="https://www.openssl.org"></ulink>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>ossp-uuid</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for UUID-OSSP support (contrib only). Source can be
-      downloaded from
-      <ulink url="http://www.ossp.org/pkg/lib/uuid/"></ulink>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>Python</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for building <application>PL/Python</application>. Binaries can
-      be downloaded from <ulink url="https://www.python.org"></ulink>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>zlib</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Required for compression support in <application>pg_dump</application>
-      and <application>pg_restore</application>. Binaries can be downloaded
-      from <ulink url="https://www.zlib.net"></ulink>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-   </variablelist>
-  </para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2 id="install-windows-full-64-bit">
-  <title>Special Considerations for 64-Bit Windows</title>
-
-  <para>
-   PostgreSQL will only build for the x64 architecture on 64-bit Windows.
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-   Mixing 32- and 64-bit versions in the same build tree is not supported.
-   The build system will automatically detect if it's running in a 32- or
-   64-bit environment, and build PostgreSQL accordingly. For this reason, it
-   is important to start the correct command prompt before building.
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-   To use a server-side third party library such as <productname>Python</productname> or
-   <productname>OpenSSL</productname>, this library <emphasis>must</emphasis> also be
-   64-bit. There is no support for loading a 32-bit library in a 64-bit
-   server. Several of the third party libraries that PostgreSQL supports may
-   only be available in 32-bit versions, in which case they cannot be used with
-   64-bit PostgreSQL.
-  </para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2 id="install-windows-full-build">
-  <title>Building</title>
-
-  <para>
-   To build all of PostgreSQL in release configuration (the default), run the
-   command:
-<screen>
-<userinput>build</userinput>
-</screen>
-   To build all of PostgreSQL in debug configuration, run the command:
-<screen>
-<userinput>build DEBUG</userinput>
-</screen>
-   To build just a single project, for example psql, run the commands:
-<screen>
-<userinput>build psql</userinput>
-<userinput>build DEBUG psql</userinput>
-</screen>
-   To change the default build configuration to debug, put the following
-   in the <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> file:
-<programlisting>
-$ENV{CONFIG}="Debug";
-</programlisting>
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-   It is also possible to build from inside the Visual Studio GUI. In this
-   case, you need to run:
-<screen>
-<userinput>perl mkvcbuild.pl</userinput>
-</screen>
-   from the command prompt, and then open the generated
-   <filename>pgsql.sln</filename> (in the root directory of the source tree)
-   in Visual Studio.
-  </para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2 id="install-windows-full-clean-inst">
-  <title>Cleaning and Installing</title>
-
-  <para>
-   Most of the time, the automatic dependency tracking in Visual Studio will
-   handle changed files. But if there have been large changes, you may need
-   to clean the installation. To do this, simply run the
-   <filename>clean.bat</filename> command, which will automatically clean out
-   all generated files. You can also run it with the
-   <parameter>dist</parameter> parameter, in which case it will behave like
-   <userinput>make distclean</userinput> and remove the flex/bison output files
-   as well.
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-   By default, all files are written into a subdirectory of the
-   <filename>debug</filename> or <filename>release</filename> directories. To
-   install these files using the standard layout, and also generate the files
-   required to initialize and use the database, run the command:
-<screen>
-<userinput>install c:\destination\directory</userinput>
-</screen>
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-   If you want to install only the client applications and
-   interface libraries, then you can use these commands:
-<screen>
-<userinput>install c:\destination\directory client</userinput>
-</screen>
-  </para>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2 id="install-windows-full-reg-tests">
-  <title>Running the Regression Tests</title>
-
-  <para>
-   To run the regression tests, make sure you have completed the build of all
-   required parts first. Also, make sure that the DLLs required to load all
-   parts of the system (such as the Perl and Python DLLs for the procedural
-   languages) are present in the system path. If they are not, set it through
-   the <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> file. To run the tests, run one of
-   the following commands from the <filename>src\tools\msvc</filename>
-   directory:
-<screen>
-<userinput>vcregress check</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress installcheck</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress plcheck</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress contribcheck</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress modulescheck</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress ecpgcheck</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress isolationcheck</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress bincheck</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress recoverycheck</userinput>
-<userinput>vcregress taptest</userinput>
-</screen>
-
-   To change the schedule used (default is parallel), append it to the
-   command line like:
-<screen>
-<userinput>vcregress check serial</userinput>
-</screen>
-
-   <command>vcregress taptest</command> can be used to run the TAP tests
-   of a target directory, like:
-<screen>
-<userinput>vcregress taptest src\bin\initdb\</userinput>
-</screen>
-
-   For more information about the regression tests, see
-   <xref linkend="regress"/>.
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-   Running the regression tests on client programs with
-   <command>vcregress bincheck</command>, on recovery tests with
-   <command>vcregress recoverycheck</command>, or TAP tests specified with
-   <command>vcregress taptest</command> requires an additional Perl module
-   to be installed:
-   <variablelist>
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><productname>IPC::Run</productname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      As of this writing, <literal>IPC::Run</literal> is not included in the
-      ActiveState Perl installation, nor in the ActiveState Perl Package
-      Manager (PPM) library. To install, download the
-      <filename>IPC-Run-&lt;version&gt;.tar.gz</filename> source archive from
-      <acronym>CPAN</acronym>,
-      at <ulink url="https://metacpan.org/dist/IPC-Run"></ulink>, and
-      uncompress. Edit the <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> file, and add a PERL5LIB
-      variable to point to the <filename>lib</filename> subdirectory from the
-      extracted archive. For example:
-<programlisting>
-$ENV{PERL5LIB}=$ENV{PERL5LIB} . ';c:\IPC-Run-0.94\lib';
-</programlisting>
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-   </variablelist>
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-   The TAP tests run with <command>vcregress</command> support the
-   environment variables <varname>PROVE_TESTS</varname>, that is expanded
-   automatically using the name patterns given, and
-   <varname>PROVE_FLAGS</varname>. These can be set on a Windows terminal,
-   before running <command>vcregress</command>:
-<programlisting>
-set PROVE_FLAGS=--timer --jobs 2
-set PROVE_TESTS=t/020*.pl t/010*.pl
-</programlisting>
-   It is also possible to set up those parameters in
-   <filename>buildenv.pl</filename>:
-<programlisting>
-$ENV{PROVE_FLAGS}='--timer --jobs 2'
-$ENV{PROVE_TESTS}='t/020*.pl t/010*.pl'
-</programlisting>
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-    Additionally, the behavior of TAP tests can be controlled by a set of
-    environment variables, see <xref linkend="regress-tap-vars" />.
-  </para>
-
-  <para>
-   Some of the TAP tests depend on a set of external commands that would
-   optionally trigger tests related to them. Each one of those variables
-   can be set or unset in <filename>buildenv.pl</filename>:
-   <variablelist>
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><varname>GZIP_PROGRAM</varname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Path to a <application>gzip</application> command. The default is
-      <literal>gzip</literal>, which will search for a command by that
-      name in the configured <envar>PATH</envar>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><varname>LZ4</varname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Path to a <application>lz4</application> command. The default is
-      <literal>lz4</literal>, which will search for a command by that
-      name in the configured <envar>PATH</envar>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><varname>OPENSSL</varname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Path to an <application>openssl</application> command. The default is
-      <literal>openssl</literal>, which will search for a command by that
-      name in the configured <envar>PATH</envar>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><varname>TAR</varname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Path to a <application>tar</application> command. The default is
-      <literal>tar</literal>, which will search for a command by that
-      name in the configured <envar>PATH</envar>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-
-    <varlistentry>
-     <term><varname>ZSTD</varname></term>
-     <listitem><para>
-      Path to a <application>zstd</application> command. The default is
-      <literal>zstd</literal>, which will search for a command by that
-      name in the configured <envar>PATH</envar>.
-     </para></listitem>
-    </varlistentry>
-   </variablelist>
-  </para>
- </sect2>
-
- </sect1>
-</chapter>
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
index b23b35cd8e7..e23c784aa5d 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
@@ -24,13 +24,6 @@ documentation.  See standalone-profile.xsl for details.
   and see <xref linkend="install-binaries" /> instead.
  </para>
 
- <para>
-  If you are building <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> for Microsoft
-  Windows, read this chapter if you intend to build with MinGW or Cygwin;
-  but if you intend to build with Microsoft's <productname>Visual
-  C++</productname>, see <xref linkend="install-windows"/> instead.
- </para>
-
  <sect1 id="install-requirements">
   <title>Requirements</title>
 
@@ -3567,8 +3560,7 @@ ERROR:  could not load library "/opt/dbs/pgsql/lib/plperl.so": Bad address
    <para>
     PostgreSQL can be built using Cygwin, a Linux-like environment for
     Windows, but that method is inferior to the native Windows build
-    <phrase condition="standalone-ignore">(see <xref linkend="install-windows"/>)</phrase> and
-    running a server under Cygwin is no longer recommended.
+    and running a server under Cygwin is no longer recommended.
    </para>
 
    <para>
@@ -3734,7 +3726,7 @@ xcrun --show-sdk-path
   </sect2>
 
   <sect2 id="installation-notes-mingw">
-   <title>MinGW/Native Windows</title>
+   <title>MinGW</title>
 
    <indexterm zone="installation-notes-mingw">
     <primary>MinGW</primary>
@@ -3743,18 +3735,13 @@ xcrun --show-sdk-path
 
    <para>
     PostgreSQL for Windows can be built using MinGW, a Unix-like build
-    environment for Microsoft operating systems, or using
-    Microsoft's <productname>Visual C++</productname> compiler suite.
+    environment for Microsoft operating systems.
     The MinGW build procedure uses the normal build system described in
-    this chapter; the Visual C++ build works completely differently
-    and is described in <xref linkend="install-windows"/>.
+    this chapter.
    </para>
 
    <para>
-    The native Windows port requires a 32 or 64-bit version of Windows
-    2000 or later. Earlier operating systems do
-    not have sufficient infrastructure (but Cygwin may be used on
-    those).  MinGW, the Unix-like build tools, and MSYS, a collection
+    MinGW, the Unix-like build tools, and MSYS, a collection
     of Unix tools required to run shell scripts
     like <command>configure</command>, can be downloaded
     from <ulink url="http://www.mingw.org/"></ulink>.  Neither is
@@ -3777,8 +3764,8 @@ xcrun --show-sdk-path
     buffering issues.
    </para>
 
-   <sect3 id="windows-crash-dumps">
-    <title>Collecting Crash Dumps on Windows</title>
+   <sect3 id="mingw-crash-dumps">
+    <title>Collecting Crash Dumps</title>
 
     <para>
      If PostgreSQL on Windows crashes, it has the ability to generate
@@ -3897,6 +3884,293 @@ make: *** [postgres] Error 1
     </para>
    </sect3>
   </sect2>
+
+  <sect2 id="installation-notes-visual">
+   <title>Visual</title>
+
+   <indexterm zone="installation-notes-visual">
+    <primary>Visual</primary>
+    <secondary>installation on</secondary>
+   </indexterm>
+
+   <para>
+    It is recommended that most users download the binary distribution for
+    Windows, available as a graphical installer package from the
+    <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> website at
+    <ulink url="https://www.postgresql.org/download/"></ulink>. Building from
+    source is only intended for people developing
+    <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> or extensions.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    PostgreSQL for Windows with Visual can be built using meson, as described
+    in <xref linkend="install-meson"/>.
+    The native Windows port requires a 32 or 64-bit version of Windows
+    10 or later.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    Native builds of <application>psql</application> don't support command
+    line editing. The <productname>Cygwin</productname> build does support
+    command line editing, so it should be used where psql is needed for
+    interactive use on <productname>Windows</productname>.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    PostgreSQL can be built using the Visual C++ compiler suite from Microsoft.
+    These compilers can be either from <productname>Visual Studio</productname>,
+    <productname>Visual Studio Express</productname> or some versions of the
+    <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname>. If you do not already have a
+    <productname>Visual Studio</productname> environment set up, the easiest
+    ways are to use the compilers from
+    <productname>Visual Studio 2022</productname> or those in the
+    <productname>Windows SDK 10</productname>, which are both free downloads
+    from Microsoft.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds are possible with the Microsoft Compiler suite.
+    32-bit PostgreSQL builds are possible with
+    <productname>Visual Studio 2015</productname> to
+    <productname>Visual Studio 2022</productname>,
+    as well as standalone Windows SDK releases 10 and above.
+    64-bit PostgreSQL builds are supported with
+    <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname> version 10 and above or
+    <productname>Visual Studio 2015</productname> and above.
+    <!--
+        For 2015 requirements:
+        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/vs2015-sysrequirements-vs
+        For 2017 requirements:
+        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/vs2017-system-requirements-vs
+        For 2019 requirements:
+        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2019/system-requirements
+        For 2022 requirements:
+        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2022/system-requirements
+    -->
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    If your build environment doesn't ship with a supported version of the
+    <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname> it is recommended
+    that you upgrade to the latest version (currently version 10), available
+    for download from <ulink url="https://www.microsoft.com/download"></ulink>.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    You must always include the
+    <application>Windows Headers and Libraries</application> part of the SDK.
+    If you install a <productname>Windows SDK</productname>
+    including the <application>Visual C++ Compilers</application>,
+    you don't need <productname>Visual Studio</productname> to build.
+    Note that as of Version 8.0a the Windows SDK no longer ships with a
+    complete command-line build environment.
+   </para>
+
+   <sect3 id="windows-requirements">
+    <title>Requirements</title>
+    <para>
+     The following additional products are required to build
+     <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> on Windows.
+
+     <variablelist>
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>ActiveState Perl</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        ActiveState Perl is required to run the build generation scripts. MinGW
+        or Cygwin Perl will not work. It must also be present in the PATH.
+        Binaries can be downloaded from
+        <ulink url="https://www.activestate.com"></ulink>
+        (Note: version 5.14 or later is required,
+        the free Standard Distribution is sufficient).
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>Bison</productname> and
+        <productname>Flex</productname></term>
+       <listitem>
+       <para>
+        <productname>Bison</productname> and <productname>Flex</productname> are
+        required.  Only <productname>Bison</productname> versions 2.3 and later
+        will work. <productname>Flex</productname> must be version 2.5.35 or later.
+       </para>
+
+       <para>
+        Both <productname>Bison</productname> and <productname>Flex</productname>
+        are included in the <productname>msys</productname> tool suite, available
+        from <ulink url="http://www.mingw.org/wiki/MSYS"></ulink> as part of the
+        <productname>MinGW</productname> compiler suite.
+       </para>
+
+       <para>
+        You will need to add the directory containing
+        <filename>flex.exe</filename> and <filename>bison.exe</filename> to the
+        PATH environment variable. In the case of MinGW, the directory is the
+        <filename>\msys\1.0\bin</filename> subdirectory of your MinGW
+        installation directory.
+       </para>
+
+       <note>
+        <para>
+          The Bison distribution from GnuWin32 appears to have a bug that
+          causes Bison to malfunction when installed in a directory with
+          spaces in the name, such as the default location on English
+          installations <filename>C:\Program Files\GnuWin32</filename>.
+          Consider installing into <filename>C:\GnuWin32</filename> or use the
+          NTFS short name path to GnuWin32 in your PATH environment setting
+          (e.g., <filename>C:\PROGRA~1\GnuWin32</filename>).
+         </para>
+       </note>
+
+       </listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+     </variablelist>
+    </para>
+
+    <para>
+     The following additional products are not required to get started,
+     but are required to build the complete package.
+
+     <variablelist>
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>ActiveState Tcl</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for building <application>PL/Tcl</application> (Note: version
+        8.4 is required, the free Standard Distribution is sufficient).
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>Diff</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Diff is required to run the regression tests, and can be downloaded
+        from <ulink url="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net"></ulink>.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>Gettext</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Gettext is required to build with NLS support, and can be downloaded
+        from <ulink url="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net"></ulink>. Note that binaries,
+        dependencies and developer files are all needed.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>MIT Kerberos</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for GSSAPI authentication support. MIT Kerberos can be
+        downloaded from
+        <ulink url="https://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/dist/index.html"></ulink>.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>libxml2</productname> and
+        <productname>libxslt</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for XML support. Binaries can be downloaded from
+        <ulink url="https://zlatkovic.com/pub/libxml"></ulink> or source from
+        <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org"></ulink>. Note that libxml2 requires iconv,
+        which is available from the same download location.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>LZ4</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for supporting <productname>LZ4</productname> compression.
+        Binaries and source can be downloaded from
+        <ulink url="https://github.com/lz4/lz4/releases"></ulink>.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>Zstandard</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for supporting <productname>Zstandard</productname> compression.
+        Binaries and source can be downloaded from
+        <ulink url="https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases"></ulink>.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>OpenSSL</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for SSL support. Binaries can be downloaded from
+        <ulink url="https://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html"></ulink>
+        or source from <ulink url="https://www.openssl.org"></ulink>.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>ossp-uuid</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for UUID-OSSP support (contrib only). Source can be
+        downloaded from
+        <ulink url="http://www.ossp.org/pkg/lib/uuid/"></ulink>.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>Python</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for building <application>PL/Python</application>. Binaries can
+        be downloaded from <ulink url="https://www.python.org"></ulink>.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+      <varlistentry>
+       <term><productname>zlib</productname></term>
+       <listitem><para>
+        Required for compression support in <application>pg_dump</application>
+        and <application>pg_restore</application>. Binaries can be downloaded
+        from <ulink url="https://www.zlib.net"></ulink>.
+       </para></listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
+
+     </variablelist>
+    </para>
+   </sect3>
+
+   <sect3 id="install-windows-full-64-bit">
+    <title>Special Considerations for 64-Bit Windows</title>
+    <para>
+     PostgreSQL will only build for the x64 architecture on 64-bit Windows.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+     Mixing 32- and 64-bit versions in the same build tree is not supported.
+     The build system will automatically detect if it's running in a 32- or
+     64-bit environment, and build PostgreSQL accordingly. For this reason, it
+     is important to start the correct command prompt before building.
+    </para>
+    <para>
+     To use a server-side third party library such as <productname>Python</productname> or
+     <productname>OpenSSL</productname>, this library <emphasis>must</emphasis> also be
+     64-bit. There is no support for loading a 32-bit library in a 64-bit
+     server. Several of the third party libraries that PostgreSQL supports may
+     only be available in 32-bit versions, in which case they cannot be used with
+     64-bit PostgreSQL.
+    </para>
+   </sect3>
+
+   <sect3 id="windows-crash-dumps">
+    <title>Collecting Crash Dumps</title>
+
+    <para>
+     If PostgreSQL on Windows crashes, it has the ability to generate
+     <productname>minidumps</productname> that can be used to track down the cause
+     for the crash, similar to core dumps on Unix. These dumps can be
+     read using the <productname>Windows Debugger Tools</productname> or using
+     <productname>Visual Studio</productname>. To enable the generation of dumps
+     on Windows, create a subdirectory named <filename>crashdumps</filename>
+     inside the cluster data directory. The dumps will then be written
+     into this directory with a unique name based on the identifier of
+     the crashing process and the current time of the crash.
+    </para>
+   </sect3>
+  </sect2>
  </sect1>
 
 </chapter>
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/postgres.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/postgres.sgml
index f31dc2094a8..2c107199d30 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/postgres.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/postgres.sgml
@@ -152,7 +152,6 @@ break is not needed in a wider output rendering.
 
   &installbin;
   &installation;
-  &installw;
   &runtime;
   &config;
   &client-auth;
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/standalone-profile.xsl b/doc/src/sgml/standalone-profile.xsl
index 077d300ebf4..82ff5c7ea15 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/standalone-profile.xsl
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/standalone-profile.xsl
@@ -60,10 +60,6 @@ variant without links and references to the main documentation.
   <xsl:text>the configuration parameter wal_compression</xsl:text>
 </xsl:template>
 
-<xsl:template match="xref[@linkend='install-windows']">
-  <xsl:text>the documentation</xsl:text>
-</xsl:template>
-
 <xsl:template match="xref[@linkend='locale-providers']">
   <xsl:text>the documentation</xsl:text>
 </xsl:template>