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+# ISA-L Build Details
+
+For x86-64 builds it is highly recommended to get an up-to-date version of
+[nasm] that can understand the latest instruction sets. Building with an older
+version is usually possible but the library may lack some function versions for
+the best performance.
+
+## Windows Build Environment Details
+
+The windows dynamic and static libraries can be built with the nmake tool on the
+windows command line when appropriate paths and tools are setup as follows.
+
+### Download nasm and put into path
+
+Download and install [nasm] and add location to path.
+
+    set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\NASM
+
+### Setup compiler environment
+
+Install compiler and run environment setup script.
+
+Compilers for windows usually have a batch file to setup environment variables
+for the command line called `vcvarsall.bat` or `compilervars.bat` or a link to
+run these. For Visual Studio this may be as follows for Community edition.
+
+    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat x64
+
+For the Intel compiler the path is typically as follows where yyyy, x, zzz
+represent the version.
+
+    C:\Program Files (x86)\IntelSWTools\system_studio_for_windows_yyyy.x.zzz\compilers_and_libraries_yyyy\bin\compilervars.bat intel64
+
+### Build ISA-L libs and copy to appropriate place
+
+Run `nmake /f Makefile.nmake`
+
+This should build isa-l.dll, isa-l.lib and isa-l_static.lib. You may want to
+copy the libs to a system directory in the dynamic linking path such as
+`C:\windows\system32` or to a project directory.
+
+To build a simple program with a static library.
+
+    cl /Fe: test.exe test.c isa-l_static.lib
+
+[nasm]: https://www.nasm.us