Building GPSBabel on Windows with QtCreator or Microsoft Visual Studio:

Windows build support is provided for developers, not currently intended 
for release builds or testing. Releases are built with mingw.

Note also that the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler (MSVC) is less standard 
compliant than other compilers and may require code modifications to compile.

Qt:
To build you need Qt http:https://qt-project.com. While the regular GPSBabel build 
uses Qt 4.6, it is possible to use the console application with Qt 5.1. 
Note that the behavior may be slightly different for localisation, due to Qt changes.

Other libraries:
Note that the "Microsoft Windows SDK" (previously "Microsoft Platform SDK")
is required in addition to the actual compiler package for DeLorme (delbin).
(Unless you have a special need for this format, it is simpler to patch the
 code that do not compile.)

QtCreator:
The GPSBabel.pro file is enabled also for Windows build in QtCreator.
To build you need to install a compiler (MS Visual Studio C++ or MinGW c/c++).
Just open the GPSBabel.pro file in QtCreator.

Microsoft Visual Studio:
If you prefer to use the MS Visual Studio editor ("Visual Studio Express 2012 for 
Windows Desktop" is available for free for non-commercial projects from 
Microsoft), you can generate a GPSBabel.vcxproj file.
To create the project file GPSBabel.vcxproj, you can just open a command window, change directory to where you want to create the project file and type: <path-to-qmake> <path-to-GPSBabel.pro>
For example: ../../Qt/5.1.0/msvc2012/bin/qmake.exe gpsbabel/GPSBabel.pro

Note that the default project is maintained separately from the regular build and is
not used by most regular GPSBabel developers. The project may not be updated 
with for instance new formats. 

The MSVS project is setup for MSVS2012. "Visual Studio Express 2012 for 
Windows Desktop" is available for free for non-commercial projects from 
Microsoft.
The project file may be usable for MSVC2010 too (untested). Older versions 
may work with a modified project file.

You need to modify MSVS default or the GPSBabel project for Qt. The following 
are the default settings:
 * IncludePath (C:\Qt\5.1.0\msvc2012\include)
 * LibraryPath (C:\Qt\5.1.0\msvc2012\lib)
In addition, if you are using Qt 4, change project properties:
 * Linker->Input->AdditionalIncludeDirectories from qt5core.lib to qtcore.lib.

Other libraries:
Note that the "Microsoft Windows SDK" (previously "Microsoft Platform SDK")
is required in addition to the actual compiler package for DeLorme (delbin).
(Unless you have a special need for this format, it is simpler to patch the
 code that do not compile.)

Running:
To run GPSBabel, you must make sure that the dlls (Qt)
are in the DLL search path.  The easiest way to do this,
and to avoid version conflicts with other programs, is to put 
the dlls in the same directory as gpsbabel.exe.

If you experience any problems with this project file or with the build 
process, please ask for assistance on the gpsbabel-code mailing list at
http:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gpsbabel-code