error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _main referenced in function ___tmainCRTStartup, but this time it's NOT a Windows/Console problem!

SDL_main.h is included automatically from SDL.h, so you always get the nasty #define.

Just write:

#include <SDL.h>
#undef main

And it should work fine


Another option would actually to define your own main with the usual parameters

int main(int argc, char *args[])
{
    // Your code here
}

That should get rid of the error.

Then if you don't use those parameters and you also want to get rid of the compiler warning you could do that trick in your main function.

(void)argc;
(void)args;

The default solution from SDL documentation:

tl;dr:

#define SDL_MAIN_HANDLED
#include "SDL.h"

full example:

Use this function to circumvent failure of SDL_Init() when not using SDL_main() as an entry point.

#define SDL_MAIN_HANDLED
#include "SDL.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    SDL_SetMainReady();
    SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO);

    ...

    SDL_Quit();

    return 0;
}

Source: https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_SetMainReady