Setup C++ Development using MinGW, Code::Blocks on Windows Vista

Download and install MinGW: 1. download MinGW-5.1.4.exe, create c:\MinGW, and run it. It'll download and install the current stable version of GCC, G++ etc. 2. set the environment, add c:\MinGW\bin;C:\MinGW\libexec\gcc\mingw32\3.4.5 to PATH 2.1 download gdb and extract to c:\MinGW 2.2 start a console, make sure you can run gcc -v and gdb -v 3. download code::blocks 8.02, install and start it 3.1 in code::blocks, settings->Global compiler settings, selected compiler=GNU GCC Compiler, then add the following into Search directories

Compiler tab

C:\MinGW\include C:\MinGW\include\c++\3.4.5 C:\MinGW\include\c++\3.4.5\backward C:\MinGW\include\c++\3.4.5\mingw32 C:\MinGW\lib\gcc\mingw32\3.4.5\include

Linker tab

C:\MinGW\lib C:\MinGW\lib\gcc\mingw32\3.4.5

Resource compiler tab

C:\MinGW\include

Note if your GCC is not 3.4.5, please change to the correct version.

Now the most important part: START THE PROJECT in C: , don't in D:, if you start the project in other disk, you'll get the following error when you compile a standard C project:

ld: crt2.o: No such file: No such file or directory

I don't know the reason, but if you copy crt2.o, crtbegin.o and crtend.o to the project directory, it'll be able to show you another issue:

undefined reference to `WinMain@16'

If the project located at c:\somedir, the those issues will disappear. What a strange thing!