diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 9af124549..d6b13bfbc 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
 .vscode/
 build/
+release/
 t/
 winbuild/
 *.dmf
 *.swp
 .cache/
-.DS_Store
\ No newline at end of file
+.DS_Store
diff --git a/scripts/release-win.sh b/scripts/release-win.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..07d422255
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/release-win.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# make Windows release
+
+if [ ! -e /tmp/furnace ]; then
+  ln -s "$PWD" /tmp/furnace || exit 1
+fi
+
+cd /tmp/furnace
+
+if [ ! -e winbuild ]; then
+  mkdir winbuild || exit 1
+fi
+
+cd winbuild
+
+x86_64-w64-mingw32-cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS="-O2" -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-O2 -Wall -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Werror" .. || exit 1
+make -j8 || exit 1
+x86_64-w64-mingw32-strip -s furnace.exe || exit 1
+
+cd ..
+
+mkdir -p release/windows || exit 1
+cd release/windows
+
+cp ../../LICENSE LICENSE.txt || exit 1
+cp ../../winbuild/furnace.exe . || exit 1
+cp ../../README.md README.txt || exit 1
+cp -r ../../papers papers || exit 1
+
+zip -r furnace.zip LICENSE.txt furnace.exe README.txt papers