The cmake code path didn't export QT_NEEDS_QMAIN as a public define to be inherited by consumers. As a result, the users's main() would be defined as normal (instead of being named qMain). This in turn would lead mingw to pick main() as the entrypoint during link time. We want to go through our WinMain entrypoint (for now), even if MingGW today has mechanisms for calling the user's main() directly, as our WinMain uses GetCommandLineW() and as a result prevents the arguments to main() from being wildcard expanded. and we want to keep parity between qmake and CMake in how this behaves, even if we end up changing it in the future. We follow what qmake does, and expose QT_NEEDS_QMAIN to clients. With the user's main being then named qMain, mingw will look for our WinMain. This in turn leads to the problem of static link ordering, where adding -lmingw32 as a dependency of the static library target results in it ending up _after_ the static library during link time, and the static linker ends up discarding the entry point library. To solve this, we split the entry point module into two targets, one for consumers, and one internal that is the actual static library. By adding the -lmingw32 dependency to the former target, we ensure it's added before the static library during linking. Change-Id: I342c979f56669d5a5a5c237f476556c4e2baf432 Reviewed-by: Alexandru Croitor <alexandru.croitor@qt.io>