Installing C/C++ GNU Compilers on Windows

[jussij]

There are many examples of how to install the GNU GCC and G++ compilers on Windows including many found on this forum.

The problem with most of these is they date very quickly, and any option that does not age with time will always a better option and it turns out the MSYS2 is just such an option.

1. To start, go to MSYS2 the home page and download and install the software as per the instructions found here: https://www.msys2.org/
2. Once installed, open the shell using the following batch file found in the installation folder, or alternatively use the MSYS2, Windows Start menu to open the shell:

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   msys2_shell.cmd

3. As per the details found on the earlier link, it is now very easy to install the GNU C compiler using a command like this:

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   pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc

4. To install the complete set of development tools, use the toolchain package described here: https://packages.msys2.org/groups/mingw ... -toolchain
   
   It can be installed using the following command:
   

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   pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain

5. The non-ucrt version of this package is found here: https://packages.msys2.org/groups/mingw ... -toolchain
   
   It can be installed using the following command:
   

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   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain

   NOTE: The ucrt packages use the Universal CRT rather than the much older msvcrt.dll runtime.
6. In addition, as these commands are installing MinGW compilers, by searching for these artifacts and adding those folder locations to the system PATH means these compilers can also be run from the Windows command prompt:

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   gcc.exe

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   g++.exe

7. Finally, by using the MSYS2 command prompt you can use a suitable pacman command to upgrade these compilers as needed. Just refer to the MSYS2 site for more details.

Jussi