MinGW C++ Download and Installation

Install MinGW

MinGW means Minimalist GNU for Windows: GNU is a source of open source programming tools (GNU stands for GNU is Not Unix).

In this handout you will download the files needed by GNU C++; in the next you will download a version of Eclipse that is already set up to use MinGW.

You may want to print these instructions before proceeding, so that you can refer to them while downloading and installing MinGW. Or, just keep this document in your browser. You should read each step completely before performing the action that it describes.

MinGW

Downloading

1. Click MinGW.

   The following page will appear in your browser (from the SourceForge web site).

   

2. Click the Download mingw-get-setup.exe(86.5 kB) link.

   This file should start downloading in your standard download folder. This file is only 85KB so it should download very quickly.

   The file should appear as

   

   Terminate the window browsing the SourceForge web site.

3. Move this file to a more permanent location, so that you can install MinGW (and reinstall it later, if necessary).

4. Start the Installation instructions directly below.

Installing

1. Double-click the icon.

   The following pop-up window will appear.

   

2. Click Run.

   The following pop-up window will appear.

   

3. Click Install.

   The following pop-up window will appear.

   

   You can install this software anywhere, but I recommend installing it in the default directory: C:\MinGW.

4. Click Continue.

   The following pop-up window will appear, showing the downloading progress. After about a minute, it should appear as follows.

   

5. Click Continue.

   The following pop-up window will appear. Ensure on the left that Basic Setup is highlighted. Click the three boxes indicated below: mingw32-base, mingw32-gcc=g++, msys-base. After clicking each, select Mark for selection. This window should appear as follows.

   

6. Terminate (click X on) the MinGW Installation Manager (I know this is weird).

   The following pop-up window should appear

   

7. Click Review Change

   The following pop-up window should appear

   

8. Click Apply.

   The following pop-up window will appear, showing the downloading progress.

   

   After a while (a few minutes to an hour, depending on your download speed), it should start extracting the donwloaded files. A few minutes after that, the following pop-up window should appear.

   

9. Click Close.

10. Edit Path so that the MinGW and MSYSM software is findable by Eclipse.
    • Click Start
    • Click Control Panel
    • Click System
    • Click Advance system settings; you will see

      

    • Click Enviroment Variables...; you will see

      

    • In the System variables (lower) part, scroll to line starting with Path and click that line.
      IMPORTANT: Even though you see a highlighted PATH in the User variables (top part) look for Path (not CLASSPATH) in the lower part to change it.
    • Click Edit...
    • Copy C:\MinGW\bin;C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\bin; (include everything from C to ;) and then paste it at the very start of the Variable Value text entry.

      When done it should look like

      

    • Click OK (3 times)