How to use GNU Make on Windows?
Explanation
Inside directory C:\MinGW\bin there is an executable file mingw32-make.exe which is the program make you are trying to run. You can use the keyword mingw32-make and run the program make since you have added the needed directory to the system path, but it is not an easy to remember keyword.
Solution
Renaming the file from mingw32-make.exe to make.exe will allow you to run program make using the keyword make.
Renaming can be done:
- Manually by right clicking and renaming the file.
- By running the command
copy c:\MinGW\bin\mingw32-make.exe c:\MinGW\bin\make.exe.
Result
Now if you type make on command prompt it should output something like:
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.
Which means the program make ran.
Although this question is old, it is still asked by many who use MSYS2.
I started to use it this year to replace CygWin, and I'm getting pretty satisfied.
To install make, open the MSYS2 shell and type the following commands:
# Update the package database and core system packages
pacman -Syu
# Close shell and open again if needed
# Update again
pacman -Su
# Install make
pacman -S make
# Test it (show version)
make -v
I'm using GNU Make from the GnuWin32 project, see http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/ but there haven't been any updates for a while now, so I'm not sure on this project's status.