Open Source SL Viewer Part 1

Start with the Open Source page on the "SL Grid" website:
http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/open_source

Click on sub-heading "code download":
http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/open_source/code

Click on "viewer source code archive page":
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Source_downloads

Being wary of version 1.20, I think I downloaded the following:
*ver 1.19.1.4 (2008-Apr-07)

To understand what you have got, go back to the "code download" page and click on "viewer source":
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_source

Get source and compile:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Get_source_and_compile

Windows builds:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Microsoft_Windows_Builds

Windows alternatives include:
* Linden Supported Compilers (Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional)
* Community Supported Compilers (Visual C++ 2005 Express)
* Community Experimental Compilers (Visual C++ 2008 Express or Linux with gcc)

Here are instructions for compiling with Visual C++ 2005 Express:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Compiling_the_viewer_%28MSVS2005%29

Setting up "Microsoft Visual Studio":
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio

Following these instructions I downloaded and installed:
* Visual C++ 2005 Express
* Microsoft Platform SDK
* DirectX 9.0 SDK (December 2006)

Go back to "compiling with Visual C++ 2005" to install some open source development tools:
* Cygwin (When running cygwin setup utility I selected to install patchutils, flex, and bison, all located under "devel", which are not part of the default install)
*ActivePython 2.3x or later

This "compiling with" page also states:
* The SL Viewer depends on third party libraries, some of which are open source (I've already downloaded these), some others are not.
*"The VS2003 libraries provided in the source downloads do not fully work with VS2005 compiled binaries."

The installation of the proprietary libraries seems terribly complicated.

Go forward to "Microsoft Visual Studio" for "Setup the project globals"

OpenSim Part 1

Start with the Main Page of the OpenSim website:
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Click on the "Download" icon:
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Download

Version 0.5.6 Alpha is available in tar.gz zip format.

Click on the "User Docs" icon:
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/User_Documentation

The "Download" icon here goes back to the same "Download" page listed above. Click on the "Build Instructions":
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OpenSim_Build_Instructions

The Build Instructions for MS-Windows say that OpenSim supports the following compilers:
*Microsoft Visual C# Express Edition
*mono