implementation of the GNU toolchain for Windows, 32-bit version; see also Mingw-w64
MinGW GCC For M68K
MinGW ("Minimalist GNU for Windows") is a compiler toolchain for creating native Microsoft Windows applications. It provides a port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and related tools that generate executables targeting … Wikipedia
Ratings
Factsheet
Developer MinGW Project
Initial release 1998; 28 years ago (1998)
Operating system Microsoft Windows
Factsheet
Developer MinGW Project
Initial release 1998; 28 years ago (1998)
Operating system Microsoft Windows
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org β€Ί wiki β€Ί MinGW
MinGW - Wikipedia
1 day ago - MinGW ("Minimalist GNU for Windows") is a compiler toolchain for creating native Microsoft Windows applications. It provides a port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and related tools that generate executables targeting the Windows API without requiring a compatibility layer or emulation ...
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Gentoo Wiki
wiki.gentoo.org β€Ί wiki β€Ί Mingw
MinGW - Gentoo wiki
MinGW (historically MinGW32) is a toolchain that provides a native GCC-based environment for compiling Windows binaries. It can also be used in cross-compilation setups to build binaries on other operating systems. MinGW-w64 is a fork of MinGW that adds support for 64-bit Windows executables.
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SourceForge
sourceforge.net β€Ί projects β€Ί mingw
MinGW - Minimalist GNU for Windows download | SourceForge.net
A native Windows port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) MinGW: A native Windows port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), with freely distributable import libraries and header files for building native Windows applications; includes extensions ...
Rating: 4.3 ​ - ​ 223 votes
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Qt Wiki
wiki.qt.io β€Ί MinGW
MinGW - Qt Wiki
January 16, 2025 - However, it can also be used as a cross-compiler e.g. on Unix (currently not officially supported). Qt Creator supports compiling with a MinGW toolchain out of the box. There are actually different MinGW toolchains and packages available: MinGW.org is the original project.
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org β€Ί wiki β€Ί Mingw-w64
Mingw-w64 - Wikipedia
February 13, 2026 - Mingw-w64 includes a build of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) targeting the MinGW-w64 platform, GNU Binutils for Windows (assembler, linker, archive manager), a set of freely distributable Windows specific header files and static import libraries for the Windows API, a Windows-native version ...
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Mingw
mingw.org
www.mingw.org - Coming Soon
MinGW serves as a bridge between the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and the Windows operating system, allowing developers to compile C, C++, and other language programs natively on Windows.
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Mingw
mingw.org β€Ί wiki
MinGW – Minimalist GNU for Windows | AnswerHarbor
August 5, 2007 - MinGW serves as a bridge between the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and the Windows operating system, allowing developers to compile C, C++, and other language programs natively on Windows.
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Mingw
mingw.org β€Ί wiki β€Ί HOWTO_Install_the_MinGW_GCC_Compiler_Suite
MinGW – Minimalist GNU for Windows – AnswerHarbor.com
MinGW serves as a bridge between the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and the Windows operating system, allowing developers to compile C, C++, and other language programs natively on Windows. Unlike full-fledged IDEs or extensive SDKs, MinGW focuses on providing essential tools and libraries necessary ...
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mingw-w64
mingw-w64.org
mingw-w64
Mingw-w64 is a collection of header ... building native Windows applications and libraries. Mingw-w64 is an advancement of the original mingw.org project, which was created to support the GCC compiler on Windows systems....
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Wikidata
wikidata.org β€Ί wiki β€Ί Q595758
MinGW - Wikidata
implementation of the GNU toolchain for Windows, 32-bit version; see also Mingw-w64
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Umich
genome.sph.umich.edu β€Ί wiki β€Ί Installing_MinGW_&_MSYS_on_Windows
Installing MinGW & MSYS on Windows - Genome Analysis Wiki
Enter c:/mingw as the path where MinGW is installed. It should confirm that you have make.exe installed, press any key to continue. Click Finish you are done the installation. (It is up to you if you want to open the documents.) There are many types of version control that you can use to track changes to files. Git is one of those types. Version control is not required, but it can be useful. Only necessary if you want to use git version control on windows.
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Tcl Wiki
wiki.tcl-lang.org β€Ί page β€Ί mingw
mingw - the Tcler's Wiki!
MinGW , short for Minimalist GNU for Windows, provides a port of GCC to Microsoft Windows, along a shell and a collection of utilities that constitute a typical minimal environment in which to build software with GCC.
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OSDev Wiki
wiki.osdev.org β€Ί MinGW
MinGW - OSDev Wiki
MinGW (Minimalist GNU for Windows) is a port of several GNU utilities to the Windows console environment, including the GCC / binutils toolchain. It is less sophisticated than Cygwin, but more compact with a lower overhead. It is most widely used in conjunction with the Dev-C++ and CodeBlocks IDE.
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Nuwen
nuwen.net β€Ί mingw.html
MinGW Distro - nuwen.net
Essentials: The components of MinGW itself. They are required in order to run GCC. Libraries: Useful C and C++ libraries. Utilities: Programs used by programmers. ... I recommend that anyone who is learning Standard C++ and who uses Windows for a primary development environment should use three compilers: the most modern versions of MSVC, Clang, and GCC.
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wxWidgets
wiki.wxwidgets.org β€Ί Installing_MinGW_under_Windows
Installing MinGW under Windows - WxWiki
July 6, 2022 - Add the bin folder of your MinGW installation (e.g. C:\MinGW\bin) to your Windows environment Path variable (see Adding an Environment Variable under Windows). This is done in order to enable the MinGW make application to run from command prompt. Retrieved from "https://wiki.wxwidgets.org/inde...
Top answer
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MinGW is a complete GCC toolchain (including half a dozen frontends, such as C, C++, Ada, Go, and whatnot) for the Windows platform which compiles for and links to the Windows OS component C Runtime Library in msvcrt.dll. Rather it tries to be minimal (hence the name).

This means, unlike Cygwin, MinGW does not attempt to offer a complete POSIX layer on top of Windows, but on the other hand it does not require you to link with a special compatibility library.
It therefore also does not have any GPL-license implications for the programs you write (notable exception: profiling libraries, but you will not normally distribute those so that does not matter).

The newer MinGW-w64 comes with a roughly 99% complete Windows API binding (excluding ATL and such) including x64 support and experimental ARM implementations. You may occasionally find some exotic constant undefined, but for what 99% of the people use 99% of the time, it just works perfectly well.

You can also use the bigger part of what's in POSIX, as long as it is implemented in some form under Windows. The one major POSIX thing that does not work with MinGW is fork, simply because there is no such thing under Windows (Cygwin goes through a lot of pain to implement it).
There are a few other minor things, but all in all, most things kind of work anyway.

So, in a very very simplified sentence: MinGW(-w64) is a "no-frills compiler thingie" that lets you write native binary executables for Windows, not only in C and C++, but also other languages.

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To compile C program you need a C implementation for your specific computer.

C implementations consist, basically, of a compiler (its preprocesser and headers) and a library (the ready-made executable code).

On a computer with Windows installed, the library that contains most ready-made executable code is not compatible with gcc compiler ... so to use this compiler in Windows you need a different library: that's where MinGW enters. MinGW provides, among other things, the library(ies) needed for making a C implementation together with gcc.


The Windows library and MSVC together make a different implementation.

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mingw-w64
mingw-w64.org β€Ί downloads
Pre-built Toolchains - mingw-w64
C++11 threading facilities, such as std::thread, std::mutex, std::condition_variable, std::call_once, thread_local etc. invoke the mcfgthread library, which implements them on Windows syscalls in a more standard-compliant and more efficient way, outperforming even native slim reader/write locks (SRW) since Windows 7.
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UCI ICS
ics.uci.edu β€Ί ~pattis β€Ί common β€Ί handouts β€Ί mingweclipse β€Ί mingw.html
MinGW C++ Download and Installation Instructions
The following pop-up window will appear. You can install this software anywhere, but I recommend installing it in the default directory: C:\MinGW.