20 Comment

nikhilsimha
./con… doesn’t work on windows ri8?
or is there a way to make it work
06 Apr 2010 | Reply
• 

  Laurence Muller

  You need to use msys to compile the libraries. It provides a linux like console and supports ./configure

  21 Apr 2010 | Reply
1. 

   Frank Henard

   Hi Laurence,

   These instructions are a great help. It has been a long time since I’ve done C++ programming, and what I have done wasn’t advanced. So on to my question…

   I’m trying to install zlib. I attempted ./configure…, and I’m getting this message:

   $ ./configure -prefix=/mingw
   Checking for gcc…
   Please use win32/Makefile.gcc instead.

   Then I tried:

   $ make
   Please use ./configure first. Thank you.

   Any ideas?

   Also, zlib-1.2.3 is not available, but 1.2.5 is. I installed 1.2.5. Is that ok?

   Finally, any tips on good books to understand C++ and all this dependency stuff?

   12 May 2010 | Reply
   • 

     chris

     if you are running windows vista or later, try to run the console (cmd) as administrator and run the normal postinstallation script manually within this console with administrator rights… this solved the problem for me. i didnt get the error message anymore.

     if you want to get zlib-1.2.3: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/libpng/zlib-1.2.3.tar.gz?download

     29 Oct 2010 | Reply
2. 

   Frank Henard

   Any ideas on the “Please use win32/Makefile.gcc instead” message?

   13 May 2010 | Reply
3. 

   Frank Henard

   I found this in http://www.gaia-gis.it/spatialite-2.4.0/mingw_how_to.html:

   cd zlib123
   cp win32/makefile.gcc makefile.gcc

   That may be what I need.

   13 May 2010 | Reply
4. 

   jV

   cp win32/makefile.gcc makefile.gcc doesn’t work at all and I cant find anything that works on the net.

   31 May 2010 | Reply
5. 

   Greg Tada

   I was able to compile zlib. Here’s what I did:

   tar –lzma -xvf
   ./msys-build-zlib zlib-1.2.5.tar.bz2
   patch <
   ./configure -prefix=/mingw
   make
   make install
   gcc -shared -o /mingw/bin/zlib1.dll -Wl,–out-implib=/mingw/lib/libz.dll.a [!em]*.o
   make check

   13 Jul 2010 | Reply
6. 

   Greg Tada

   Now I can’t seem to get libtiff to build. Getting a recursive error during link stage (object name conflicts in archive).

   13 Jul 2010 | Reply
7. 

   Daryl Lee

   As a variant on what worked for Greg with zlib, what I did was “make -f win32/makefile.gcc”, and then just copied the *.a files into /mingw/lib and the *.exe into /mingw/bin. At that point the example.exe seemed to work.

   20 Sep 2010 | Reply
8. 

   Brian

   The zlib link seems to be dead. Since the rest of the libraries work great, I think it would be great if you found a live link for the newer version. The dead link can be discouraging to n00bs like me.

   29 Apr 2011 | Reply
   • 

     Laurence Muller

     @Brian: Thanks for letting me know, I’ve update and changed the URL to the SF mirror. As always you can also visit http://www.zlib.net/ for the most up to date version of zlib.

     03 May 2011 | Reply
9. 

   Dmitry F. Volosnykh

   Instead of copying, you should run “make install -f win32/Makefile.gcc”. So, it conforms standard procedure of building from sources under GNU/Linux: “make && make install” chain. Good luck.

   16 Jul 2011 | Reply
   • 

     Dmitry F. Volosnykh

     Sorry, before running “make install …”, you should define variables BINARY_PATH, INCLUDE_PATH, LIBRARY_PATH to appropriate mingw folders. Well, read the win32/Makefile.gcc itself 😉

     16 Jul 2011 | Reply
10. 

    Thedemon007

    a) zlib http://www.zlib.net/

    cd into the folder
    If you try to run ./configure from mingw you will probably get “Please use win32/Makefile.gcc instead.”
    Do “make -f win32/Makefile.gcc”
    You will need to add some lines to your path before you can install zlib. Try either of these options. Either way you will run the same make command: ‘make install -f win32/Makefile.gcc’

    option 1: prepend the path variable before you call make: >’BINARY_PATH=/mingw/bin INCLUDE_PATH=/mingw/include LIBRARY_PATH=/mingw/lib make install -f win32/Makefile.gcc’

    option 2: add the path definitions inside your win32/Makefile.gcc file:

    BINARY_PATH=/mingw/bin
    INCLUDE_PATH=/mingw/include
    LIBRARY_PATH=/mingw/lib

    , then install zlib with ‘make install -f win32/Makefile.gcc’

    04 Dec 2011 | Reply
11. 

    Charles

    This doesn’t work at all. ./configure is not a command I can run from a cmd.exe prompt. Where do I extract these files to, and how do I install them in windows. I need every single step, you’re leaving out something major that I’m just not getting.

    Charles.

    25 Apr 2012 | Reply
    • 

      Laurence Muller

      You’re not suppose to use cmd.exe to compile these libraries, you need to install MinGW/MSYS and use the MinGW shell with these commands.

      25 Apr 2012 | Reply
12. 

    Teong Leong

    Sorry to revive this thread.
    I met with problems while compiling freetype in mingw

    I’ve gotten beyond ./configure –prefix=/mingw.
    I’m at the make step.
    seems like the make script is trying to create a folder /.lib which is illegal in windows.
    I have no idea how to get pass this problem. I was hoping there was a more elegant way of installing libraries than copying files by hand.

    10 Apr 2013 | Reply
    • 

      Marc Williams

      Are you saying it’s trying to create a .lib directory at the root of the drive?
      (for instance C:\.lib or D:\.lib etc. That’s what I gather from the /.lib)
      The .libs directories get created just fine normally.
      The libtool script in the toplevel source dir handles creating those dirs (objdir=.libs). Note, should be .libs, not .lib.
      Maybe there’s a typo in the script or something.

      29 May 2013 | Reply
13. 

    Ciro Meneses

    Nice post man, thanks for it.

    BRAZIL

    10 May 2016 | Reply