Dev C in Windows 8: gcc Internal Error

Question

I am a teacher's assistant for a C programming class, and the instructor uses Dev C++ as the compiler for the class. Personally I would use a different one, but the choice is not mine here. Recently I installed the Windows 8 Professional 64 bit that is available on Dreamspark though my university, so I can start with some metro app development for some contests. Unfortunately, Dev C++ has stopped compiling. It previously worked fine with Windows 7 64 bit.

I get an error when compiling that reports back:

Compiler: Default compiler
Executing  gcc.exe...
gcc.exe "C:\Users\James\Documents\Homework\TA_CPRE_185\counter.c" -o "C:\Users\James\Documents\Homework\TA_CPRE_185\counter.exe"    -I"C:\Dev-Cpp\include"   -L"C:\Dev-Cpp\lib" 
gcc.exe: Internal error: Aborted (program collect2)
Please submit a full bug report.
See <URL:http://www.mingw.org/bugs.shtml> for instructions.

Execution terminated
Compilation successful

It says the compilation is successful but it is not, so no executable is made. I want to know if anyone has any ideas of what might get Dev C++ to work on this version of Windows, so I don't have to run Dev C++ in a virtual machine? I need it working, so I can do class demonstrations.

Answer 1

Please tell your teacher to update Dev-C++ instead:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/orwelldevcpp/?source=directory

This one ships with a working MinGW 4.7 or a TDM-GCC 4.6.1 (x64) compiler, fixes endless amounts of bugs, and is also portable.

Answer 2

I believe that Dev-C++ comes with a very old version of MinGW (3.4.x if I'm not mistaken). MinGW versions before 4.2.2 will have problems compiling programs on Windows Vista and later unless they are on the PATH.

So you can either update your version of MinGW (as you mentioned in a comment that you have already done), or you can add the MinGW\bin directory to the system path.