GCC for Windows How to install gcc in Windows 10? (the easier way)

GCC, abbreviation for 'GNU C Compiler' (and not Gulf Cooperation Council, like I'd assumed) is a necessity if you (or your pesky college) is into C Programming.

Almost all Linux distros come pre-installed with it so they are out of the trouble. But for those of you who were constant users of Windows and Command Prompt, and never felt the necessity for a C compiler, GCC seems to come out of the blue and a tough nut to install. 1000 rage-quits later, I present you this article.

This article is written so that the installation process is made easier than most of the trashy articles I had to go through.

Installation

1. Go to MinGW official website and click on 'Downloads' on the left panel. You'll be redirected to the site which hosts the files. Important Edit: MinGW official website is now down (as of 24th March 2021). Hence, instead of their official website, download from MinGW SourceForge page
2. Look for mingw-get-setup.exe for downloading. Download it and launch the installer. Accept the terms and move on.
3. You'll now see that the installer is connecting to the Internet and downloading a lot of tiny and small files. Wait till it ends.
4. Right when it ends (which won't take long), you'll be presented a window with title MinGW Installation Manager. You should be in the 'Basic Setup' tab by default when it launches. If not, click on Basic Setup.
5. Out of the numerous check boxes presented to you on the right side, tick "mingw32-gcc-g++-bin". If you are prompted with a menu, click on Mark for Install.
6. Then on the top left corner click on Installation > Apply Changes. And wait while it downloads a billion files and installs them.

1. Now you gotta edit your "Environment Variables" as well, so that gcc works in cmd no matter the file location.
2. For that go to Windows Explorer > Right click on This PC > Properties > Advanced system settings > Environment Variables or you could just search for "Environment Variables" in Windows Search...

3. At the bottom "System Variables" panel, look for a Variable named "Path" and double click on it. Some systems show a good UI for adding a New Path easily (by clicking New), else you just need to add ; at the end and add the following path
   

   C:\MinGW\bin
   

   (This is assuming you didn't manually change any installation paths and went with just clicking 'Next' during installation)

4. Click on OK, and OK and close the other windows. Open a Command Prompt Terminal and try typing gcc --version and press Enter.

   If you get something like
   

   gcc (MinGW.org GCC Build-2) 9.2.0
   Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. 
   There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
   FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
   

   gcc has been successfully installed in your PC. Enjoy!

Cheers and happy coding!