Installing MinGW and Eclipse for C++ development on Windows 7
This set of instructions lists the steps needed to get a C++ development environment up and running on Windows 7 using the MinGW set of tools integrated into the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) 1. 2. 3.
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Read all these instructions through before beginning.
Start by reviewing the Eclipse instructions here: http://help.eclipse.org/indigo/ index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.cdt.doc.user/concepts/cdt_c_before_you_begin.htm Download the latest version of MinGW Installer from: http://sourceforge.net/ projects/mingw/files/ It is after the Looking for latest version? And should be named mingw-get-inst-YYYYMMDD.exe where YYYY is year, MM is month, and DD is the day of the build. This tutorial gives a good overview of installing MinGW: http://www.banym.de/ eclipse/install-eclipse-cdt-on-windows-7 Make sure to install MinGW in the default directory of C:\MinGW When installing MinGW be sure to select the C++ Compiler component, the MSYS Basic System, and MinGW Developer Toolkit (which includes the MSYS Basic System) I also chose to update the catalogues rather than using the ones shipped with the installer. It takes a few minutes for it to download the new catalogues and install it. Go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Advanced System Settings (off on left side of window) -> Environment Variables (button near bottom) Select the System Variable named Path and Click Edit Add ; C:\MinGW\bin to the end, not forgetting the semicolon at the beginning Open a command prompt (type cmd and then enter at the search blank on the Start menu) and try gcc and then Enter. It should respond with: gcc: no input files. Try g++ and it should respond the same. My installation failed to install g++ so I had to open a command prompt (cmd.exe), change directory to C:\MinGW\bin and run mingw-get install mingw32-gcc-g++ at the command prompt (without the quotes) Before you install Eclipse, you need to install a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). These can be found at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/ downloads/index-jsp-138363.html Note that Oracle owns Java now. I installed JRE 7 and things seemed to work okay. Installing Eclipse: Go to: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-cc-developersincludes-incubating-components/indigor Download the version that matches your OS from the options on the right. You will have downloaded a zip file, unzip it and move that directory to where you want to run Eclipse from. There is no installation process, it just runs out of that directory. When you start up Eclipse, you will be asked for a default directory for your projects.
MinGW and Eclipse on Windows 7
File -> New -> C++ Project
Select Hello World C++ Project, give it a name and press Next Make sure that the Toolchain is MinGW GCC Once the program shows up, click inside the .cpp program, then press the hammer button just under the Window menu item. This should build the program. 24. Go back to the command prompt, change directory to the debug directory under where you put the project. There should be a .exe file with the same name as your project. Run it and it should print out Hello World on the command prompt. 20. 21. 22. 23.