[Answer] How to Install Qt?

[Answer] How to Install Qt?

The installation method for newer versions of Qt is different from the past. Since Qt 5.14, Qt Company has changed its licensing policy, and the open-source edition of Qt no longer provides an offline installer. It can only be installed through the online installer. However, downloads from the official Qt website are often very slow, and the online installation may fail easily. Therefore, to install a newer version of Qt smoothly, you need to use Qt’s official online installer together with source files from an open-source mirror site. Here, the Tsinghua University open-source mirror is used as an example.

First, you still need to register an account on the Qt website and download the open-source online installer from the Get Qt page. Due to copyright restrictions, the Windows online installer cannot be downloaded from open-source mirror sites. However, the macOS and Linux versions of the online installer can be obtained from those mirror sites.

After downloading, navigate to the download directory in the command line and run the following command (assuming the downloaded file has been renamed to installer.exe. If not, use the original filename instead, such as qt-unified-windows-x64-4.4.2-online.exe):

installer.exe --mirror https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/qt

This allows you to use the open-source mirror site to speed up the Qt installation. However, during the installation process, you still need to log in with your Qt account in order to install and use the software normally.

By default, a Qt installation only includes one specific version and some commonly used libraries. If you need other libraries or different versions of Qt, you must install them separately. Normally, you can go to the Control Panel, select Qt, and choose Modify, but this will use Qt’s default mirror. If you want to continue using a domestic mirror, run the maintenance tool MaintenanceTool.exe in the Qt installation directory as follows:

MaintenanceTool.exe --mirror https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/qt