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Windows 10 Anniversary Update includes the Linux Subsystem for Ubuntu. I installed gcc with sudo apt-get install gcc.

I wrote some simple C code for testing purposes:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void){
    printf("Hello\n");
    return 0;
}

And compiled it with gcc -c main.c but the execute (Linux only) main.o is generated. If I run it ./main.o, it displays Hello.

My question is, how can I compile main.c so that Windows can run it? Basically, how do you generate a *.exe file with GCC in Linux Subsystem ?

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  • 1
    compile Windows exe...aren't they already executable? Commented Aug 5, 2016 at 9:36
  • 2
    Your question is (to me at least) a bit unclear. Can you provide more information outlining why what you get is different from what you expected. Note also that by passing the -c option to the compiler you are explicitly telling it to perform the compilation step only -- and to not produce an executable by linking. Commented Aug 5, 2016 at 9:52
  • @G.M. If I want to get the * .exe file should I just make so gcc -o main.exe main.c ? The fact is that when I do it and try to ran this output file main.exe I got this i.imgur.com/NUDCslM.jpg Commented Aug 5, 2016 at 9:56
  • Did you try to run it inside or outside of Linux Subsystem? Commented Aug 5, 2016 at 9:57
  • 2
    Since this seems to be fully linux system, you would need a cross-compiler to compile windows executable in linux. Commented Aug 5, 2016 at 10:02

2 Answers 2

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144

Linux Subsystem works as a Linux-computer. You can only run Linux executables inside it and default gcc creates Linux executables.

To create Windows executables, you need to install mingw cross-compiler:

sudo apt-get install mingw-w64

Then you can create 32-bit Windows executable with:

i686-w64-mingw32-gcc -o main32.exe main.c

And 64-bit Windows executable with:

x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc -o main64.exe main.c

Note that these Windows executables will not work inside Linux Subsystem, only outside of it.

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8 Comments

The man page for gcc seems to imply that there are some options for making Windows console and windowed exes. Is there any reason why they wouldn't work? -mconsole -mwindows
I don't have much experience with creating Windows apps, so I don't know the details of those compiler options. Still those Windows-specific options will only work with *-mingw32-gcc compilers and not default gcc which is creating Linux executables.
It seems like x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc is changed such that it is designed to use the windows C runtime (MSVCRT.DLL) and other core Windows libraries instead of the standard C libs gcc links (presumably whatever is in /lib?).
it seems to work but how can compile the file to .exe if the .c needs a .txt file as parameter
I doubt this is exactly correct. It says you "need to" use mingw. Surely that's only one option. GCC is famously supposed to be able to cross-compile between anything so surely it can also cross-compile x86-PE on an x86-ELF system? I don't know how to do it but it seems shocking if it's impossible.
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12

If you compile using gcc on linux it will produce an ELF file not a PE (what windows understand) file

To compile a program for windows inside linux you can use mingw.

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1 Comment

How to use mingw to compile cpp file to exe

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