MinGW (Minimalist GNU for Windows), formerly mingw32, is a software port of the GNU toolchain to Microsoft Windows. MinGW includes a set of header files for the Windows API, which allows developers to... More

MinGW (Minimalist GNU for Windows), formerly mingw32, is a software port of the GNU toolchain to Microsoft Windows. MinGW includes a set of header files for the Windows API, which allows developers to utilize the Windows system libraries without the need for an interface layer (as with Cygwin). MinGW was selected as Project of the Month at SourceForge.net for September 2005.The MinGW project maintains and distributes a number of different packages. The various GNU ports are translated into equivalent packages such as GCC and binutils. These utilities can be used from the Windows command line or integrated into an IDE. In addition, MSYS (minimal system) provides a lightweight Unix-like shell environment including rxvt and a selection of POSIX tools sufficient to enable autoconf scripts to run.MSYS and the Win32 header files are released under a permissive license, while the GNU ports are provided under the GNU General Public License. Binary downloads of both the complete MSYS package and individual MinGW GNU utilities are available from the MinGW site.  [edit]  Less