Mingw gives my a libwinpthread-1.dll was not found error when compiling code

Question

I just downloaded and installed Mingw. I also setup the system environment variables for C:\MinGW\bin and C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\bin. I wanted to test to see if I had installed it correctly (it seemed to be since running gcc --version worked), so I wrote hellow world in c and tried to compile with gcc main.c -o hello_world.exe. However I got the error:

"The code execution cannot proceed because libewinpthread-1.dll" was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem."

I have tired reinstalling it and restarting my computer. I have also tried to see if this problem has occurred to others, and while there are a few places it is mentioned, I can't seem to find a solution mentioned. I have thought about trying to download the dll separately, but if I remember correctly, downloading dlls is a big no no.

Awhile ago I installed mingw though chocolatey and it seemed to be working. I have deleted that download from my computer and removed the paths, since I wanted to try to install it the normal way. Could this be part of the error?

Any ideas what the issue could be? Thanks!

Answer 1

You have built an .exe file that depends on libwinpthread-1.dll.

Solutions to make sure the .exe can run:

• Add the MinGW bin path to your PATH so libwinpthread-1.dll - this would only fix it for your own system so I wouldn't recommend this if you want to use the .exe file on other systems.
• Copy libwinpthread-1.dll from MinGW in the same folder as your .exe file. This is generally needed for any shared dependancy library your .exe is linked against.
• Build a static .exe (--static linker flag) to avoid the shared (.dll) dependancy.