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thwaller edited this page Jan 23, 2019 · 16 revisions

qaac is a console application for MS Windows XP SP3 or later, and depends on Apple Application Support. Apple Application Support is not shipped as an independent installer package, but included in Apple products such as iTunes or QuickTime. If you are using 64bit Windows, the most recent 64bit iTunes installer (ver 12.1 or later) is recommended. 64bit installer for iTunes (iTunes64Setup.exe) includes both of 32bit and 64bit AppleApplicationSupport, therefore you can run both of qaac.exe and qaac64.exe with it's installation.

To install qaac, just extract the archive qaac_x.xx.zip. There included x86 folder that contains 32bit binaries and x64 folder that contains 64bit binaries. If you are running 32bit OS, you can use only 32bit binaries. Otherwise, you can use both of 32bit and 64bit binaries. Depending on your OS, copy binaries (exe and DLL) to where you like.

If you want qaac to directly read FLAC, WavPack, TAK, or other formats supported via libsndfile, you have to additionally obtain the following libraries.

FLAC
The latest libFLAC win32 binary doesn't seem like officially provided, but you can get them from www.rarewares.org. Download libFLAC v.1.3.1 for win32 or win64. Copy libFLAC_dynamic.dll in the archive to the same directory as qaac.
Note: At least libFLAC 1.2.1 to 1.3.1 is compatible with qaac. qaac searches and tries to load libFLAC by the following names: libFLAC_dynamic.dll, libFLAC.dll and LibFLAC-8.dll.
WavPack
Download wavpackdll.zip from http://www.wavpack.com/downloads.html. Install wavpackdll.dll in the archive into the same directory as qaac (You need DLL under x64 folder for qaac64.exe). Other than wavpackdll.dll, qaac also recognizes libwavpack-1.dll.
TAK
Download tak-x.x.x.zip from http://www.thbeck.de/Tak/Tak.html. Install tak_deco_lib.dll in the archive into the same directory with qaac.
Note that this is for 32bit only.
libsndfile
Download libsndfile installer (w32 and/or w64, depending on your needs) from http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/. Run installer, and copy libsndfile-1.dll from Program Files/Mega-Nerd/libsndfile.