Installation

qaac is a console application for MS Windows XP SP3 or later, and depends on Apple Application Support, which cannot be downloaded directly from Apple. It is bundled with Apple software such as iTunes, QuickTime, and iCloud. If you are using 64bit Windows, the most recent iTunes or iCloud installer is recommended. These installers include both 32bit and 64bit Apple Application Support, so you can run either qaac.exe or qaac64.exe. Note that is is not necessary to actually install the full Apple application. Decompression software like 7-Zip can extract the Apple installer and the AppleApplicationSupport MSI installers are easy to find and install independently.

To install qaac, extract archive qaac_x.xx.zip. The x86 folder contains 32bit binaries and the x64 folder contains 64bit binaries. If you are running a 32bit OS, you can use only the 32bit binaries. Otherwise, you can use either the 32bit or 64bit binaries. Depending on your OS, copy the binaries (exe and DLL) where you like.

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

FLAC

libFLAC binaries can be downloaded from https://github.com/xiph/flac/releases. libFLAC version 1.2.1 and greater are compatible with qaac; the win64 bundle should be used with qaac64 and the win32 bundle should be used with qaac. Extract libFLAC.dll from the archive into the same directory as qaac. qaac will look for libFLAC with any of the following names: libFLAC_dynamic.dll, libFLAC.dll, or LibFLAC-8.dll.

WavPack

Download wavpack-x.x.x-dll.zip from https://github.com/dbry/WavPack/releases. Extract wavpackdll.dll from the archive into the same directory as qaac (use the DLL within the x64 folder for qaac64.exe). In addition to wavpackdll.dll, qaac also recognizes libwavpack-1.dll.

TAK

Download TAK_x.x.x.zip from www.thbeck.de/Tak/Tak.html. Extract tak_deco_lib.dll from the archive (look in folder Deco_Lib) into the same directory as qaac.
Note that this is for 32bit qaac only.

libsndfile

Download libsndfile-x.x.xx-win32.zip or libsndfile-x.x.xx-win64.zip from https://github.com/libsndfile/libsndfile/releases. Extract sndfile.dll from the archive into the same directory as qaac. In addition to sndfile.dll, qaac also recognizes libsndfile.dll and libsndfile-1.dll.