Thread: Mingw

  1. #1
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    Mingw

    Hey,
    I'm trying to make a program that will make a self-extracting exe file. I think I'm going to use the mingw gcc compiler to do such, but is there a way that I can use it without having to install mingw? For the purpose of having other people use my program so that they don't need to install mingw in addition to my own program? The only files I would need would be stdio.h, stdlib.h, windows.h and g++.exe to compile it. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated!
    Thanks!
    Blair

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    You need to install MinGW to compile your own program for testing and distribution. Your users do not need to install MinGW unless they want to compile their own copy of your program.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
    Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

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    Right, I understand that. But for my program to create the selfextracting exe file I need to use mingw. My program is going to compile other self extracting files.

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    why not have the compiled program as the input instead of the source file?

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    Quote Originally Posted by robwhit View Post
    why not have the compiled program as the input instead of the source file?
    I'm not sure what you mean by that? The purpose of the program is for more basic languages that require multiple files to run. My program will compile them all into one and then when the exe file my program created is run it will extract those files and then run the exe it extracts.

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    Exactly like that. But I'd like to program it myself haha. I can do it if the user has installed mingw (compile the self extracting exe) but I don't want the user to have to install another program besides my own.

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    you'll have to assemble the exe yourself. You'll need knowledge of the PE file format (if you're using Windows) and some compression software.

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    I've been able to create a program that does what I want it to. But its large and can't do very big files. Basically just writes a .c which fprintf every character of a file...slow...big...not the way to do it. What about creating a resource file? and then have the exe extract the information from the resource file? I'm not really sure if this could work, but lemme know if anyone thinks it could.

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