Windows installation question

ssinai · Post by **ssinai** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:11 am

Hi. For a Windows XP Home machine, does xwWidgets depend on having the MFC libraries already installed? I hardly ever do Windows programming, and don't have a Windows IDE or MFC libraries nstalled on my machine. I was hoping that by using xwWidgets, I wouldn't have to use an IDE. (I'm an old ant/makefile/vi type programmer.) When I got to the point in the xwWidgets installation instructions that said to go to Visual Studio to build the libraries, I went "uh-oh."

priyank_bolia · Post by **priyank_bolia** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 6:56 am

wxWidgets is a framework, you need a compiler too, for that you can use Visual C++ 2005 Express, or Cygwin. You don't need an IDE for wxWidgets to use, notepad can also work, but generally people use an IDE for extra features. For working with wxWidgets and writing programs you definately need an compiler, If you are looking for free VC++ 2005 Express, then take a look at here:
http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/wx ... 005express

chris · Post by **chris** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:09 pm

Hi ssinai,

You could also install the free Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 (command line compiler only) and use nmake. Wiki instructions here.
Or coming from a Unix background, you could also use MinGW (the Windows port of gcc) and MSYS, which uses the well-known ./configure && make style. The Makefile for MinGW are like the Unix ones. Wiki instructions here.

HTH, Chris