If you are using MingW to compile C++ code on Windows, you may like to add the options -static-libgcc and -static-libstdc++ to link the C and C++ standard libraries statically and thus remove the need to carry around any separate copies of those. Version management of libraries is a pain in Windows, so I've found this approach the quickest and cleanest solution to creating Windows binaries.

Another way is if you specify -static it implies -static-libgcc and -static-libstdc++ (as well as linking to all other libraries as static where available). Note that if you are building c++ libraries (like libXX.a type files), they must also be compiled with the same static vs. not or your program will crash.

@Thomas199995 It looks like you are using MinGW and you are not deploying the C++ Runtime.

Let's assume you have installed MinGW 11.2.0 via Qt SDK at C:\Qt\Tools\mingw1120_64\bin.

You can start your application from a cmd.exe window as:

$ cd c:\Projects\MyApp
$ set PATH=C:\Qt\Tools\mingw1120_64\bin;%PATH%
$ myapp.exe

In order to find out which dependencies your application has, and which files to copy you can do:

$ cd c:\Projects\MyApp
$ set PATH=C:\Qt\Tools\mingw1120_64\bin;%PATH%
$ objdump -x myapp.exe | findstr \.dll

Then in the same cmd.exe window you do:

$ copy /b "C:\Qt\Tools\mingw1120_64\bin\libstdc++-6.dll" .

Then you can start your application without modifying the PATH environment variable.

libstdc++ is the GNU c++ standard library implementation.

libc++ is the LLVM/clang c++ standard library implementation.

Even when compiling with clang, libstdc++ (gnu) is often used (on Linux).

A main reason libc++ (clang) exists is that libstdc++ (gnu) is GPL and so Apple can't ship it, so you can think of libc++ as the non-GPL libstdc++.