setting up cpp development on windows

Here's how I setup cpp for development on windows

• download msys2
• use the URCT terminal profile, note that when you launch the terminal you will not be in the root of your base computers filesystem, instead you have to do cd /c/Users/username to get there
• download git (note that you might already have git installed such as git bash on your computer, this is ok, this version won't conflict and is contained within the scope of your msys2 setup)

        
            pacman -S git
        
    

• download the conan package manager for cpp packages

        
            pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-python-conan
        
    

After downloading the above be sure to generate a conan profile with conan profile detect

• download cmake cmake which is a build configuration generator, this allows you to setup a project to be built with specific settings while not having to have those settings stored in an operating system specific fasion, for example you can force your project to use c++23 without no matter what compiler you're using (apple-clang, mingw-gcc, gcc).

        
            pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-cmake
        
    

• download a compiler, I usually get gcc

        
            pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc
        
    

Also if cmake wants to use Mingw Makefiles then make sure you have make

        
            pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-make
        
    

You should now be setup to start compiling, if you want an editor you can grab neovim