MinGW32 MSVCRT Toolchain

i686-w64-mingw32 cross-compiler toolchain using MSVCRT as default runtime. Ideal for compiling binaries compatible with Windows 9x, 2000, XP and other old systems, avoiding UCRT.

🎯 Objective

Build a clean and minimalist MinGW32 toolchain with:

• binutils
• gcc (phase 1)
• mingw-w64 headers
• mingw-w64 CRT (with MSVCRT)
• gcc (phase 2 - according to mingw32 to make Toolchains or Canadian Cross, is necessary to make GCC in two phases)
• mingw-w64 tools (gendef, genidl, genpeimg, widl)

✅ Prerequisites

• Linux with:
• wget, tar, make, gcc, gawk, bison, flex, texinfo
• Isolated environment (chroot, container, etc) recommended
• Permissions to install in /opt (or adjust the PREFIX variable)

🛠️ How to use

prepare a CHROOT development environment so that your new toolchain does not have problems with your current environment (which probably already has a toolchain) as this can cause problems, to make a clean toolchain, you MUST create a clean development environment in CHROOT or Docker (if you know how to create one)

Below are brief instructions for creating a CHROOT environment in Arch Linux, but this can be reproduced in any distro of your choice, just create the CHROOT according to your distro

1 - install the devtools package (if it is not already installed)

sudo pacman -S devtools

2 - Create the CHROOT directory wherever you want (I recommend it to be in the HOME folder)

mkdir -p ~/chroot/mingw-root

3 - Create the clean environment in CHROOT (the command will already install the base tools and git inside the CHROOT, include something if necessary) (if you wish)

sudo mkarchroot ~/chroot/mingw-root/root base-devel git

4 - Enter your new isolated environment

sudo arch-nspawn ~/chroot/mingw-root/root

5 - Inside the CHROOT install the extra dependencies

pacman -Syu --noconfirm \
gcc binutils gmp mpfr mpc zlib isl git \
mingw-w64-headers mingw-w64-crt \
make autoconf automake texinfo

6 - Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/LuizRafael79/mingw32-msvcrt

Prepare the script for use

prepare and execute compile-mingw.sh with:

chmod +x compile-mingw.sh
./compile-mingw-sh

🧪 Post-build

Add to PATH:

export PATH=$PREFIX/bin:$PATH
edit accordingly your PREFIX configuration

Example of compilation:

i686-w64-mingw32-gcc -nostdlib -static-libgcc -lmingw32 hello.c -o hello.exe

🖼️ Compatibility

• Generate code for Windows 95/98/ME/2k/XP
• Compatible with Windows NT 4.0/2k/XP
• Don't Work with UCRT (but you have to test it)
• Works with MSVCRT (tested)

📄 License

This project only automates compilations of GNU tools under their respective licenses (GPL/LGPL/BSD).

📄 Note

This repository is part of a complex project comming soon early