Actual C compiler for Windows for free

[SiliconWizard]

wxWidgets is IMO the closest to looking "native" than most other cross-platform libraries, and the licensing is nicer (again IMO) than Qt's. And as Nominal pointed out, it's not just looking native but actually uses the native common dialogs and widgets when available.

Although looking close to native, Qt is different as Nominal said, and Qt apps are IME very recognizable. I can spot that an app uses Qt in a couple seconds.

[77algernon]

To OP: You may try Pelles C Compiler, a complete C compiler/IDE/toolkit, in under 15 MBytes =)

http://www.smorgasbordet.com/pellesc/

[rstofer]

All C compilers I know of are actually "command line". Even MSVC. Visual Studio just adds an IDE on top of the MS comand line tools, which, BTW, you can also install without Visual Studio IDE.
Likewise, you can use a number of other free IDEs along with GCC. If you like the Visual Studio interface, you can use Visual Studio Code for instance.

Visual Studio can print your source files, Visual Studio Code can not.  I like VS Code, I use it all the time but I really hate having to open the file with another editor just to get a listing.

[SiliconWizard]

All C compilers I know of are actually "command line". Even MSVC. Visual Studio just adds an IDE on top of the MS comand line tools, which, BTW, you can also install without Visual Studio IDE.
Likewise, you can use a number of other free IDEs along with GCC. If you like the Visual Studio interface, you can use Visual Studio Code for instance.

Visual Studio can print your source files, Visual Studio Code can not.  I like VS Code, I use it all the time but I really hate having to open the file with another editor just to get a listing.

Ah, that's funny. I have VS Codium - mainly installed it to evaluate it, and occasionally to get a GUI frontend for GDB - it has an extension for that - but otherwise, I don't use it. Just checked and you're right, it doesn't support printing. Must be one of the few IDEs I've seen that did not!

[cfbsoftware]

I like VS Code, I use it all the time but I really hate having to open the file with another editor just to get a listing.

If it's any consolation you are not alone:
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/5953

[SiliconWizard]

I like VS Code, I use it all the time but I really hate having to open the file with another editor just to get a listing.

If it's any consolation you are not alone:
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/5953

Wow, it's over 5 years old. And still nothing. Guess MS does not care one bit. Or maybe they want to keep this feature strictly as a differentiator for Visual Studio.

Note that VS Codium does not have printing either. But as far as I've understood, VS Codium is not really a fork, so it doesn't add any feature to VS Code. It's mainly a *build* that just strips off the nasty stuff (telemetry...) but otherwise uses the same code base.

[PlainName]

It's mainly a *build* that just strips off the nasty stuff (telemetry...)

Thought that would be worth a look, but on Windows it uses Chocolaty or Scoop for install, both of which make Microsoft look sensible.

[SiliconWizard]

It's mainly a *build* that just strips off the nasty stuff (telemetry...)

Thought that would be worth a look, but on Windows it uses Chocolaty or Scoop for install, both of which make Microsoft look sensible.

It doesn't need any install. You can download the binaries directly and run it without installation. That's what I do.

Just pick the .zip file of your choice here:  https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/releases (latest is VSCodium-win32-x64-1.62.3.zip for Windows/x64)

[PlainName]

It doesn't need any install.

Blinding, thanks 

Dunno how I missed that. Probably too dazzled by the  pretty web page 

[SiliconWizard]

It doesn't need any install.

Blinding, thanks 

Dunno how I missed that. Probably too dazzled by the  pretty web page 

Yes, the web site is not the best. But it explains the difference with VS Code, including license differences...

Note that (probably also for licensing reasons), some VS Code extensions are not accessible in VS Codium. But you should find equivalent extensions that will work with it. Was the case for the extension supporting GDB debugging.

[rpiloverbd]

I use visual studio

[PlainName]

The thing Visual Studio (even the proper full fat one) doesn't have, which I find so useful it's the other primary feature all my code editors since Brief have had, is the preview window. This isn't the VS preview window that merely shows a file preview but a preview of whatever your cursor happens to be on. If it's a function call it will show the function definition. A variable, the declaration. A struct member, the structure declaration. Etc. Even if you're not using it to actually preview, it is so quick that you get used to it signalling that the thing you just typed actually exists. IOW, if you type a name and the preview window doesn't show the declaration, you've made a typo.

The attached screeny gives a flavour. It's part of ESP32 example code, so the highlighted #define is actually defined somewhere within the 1GB of ESP-IDF source. Nevertheless, as soon as I click on it the preview window shows the definition - it is very rare that it doesn't update within a second. (Of course, this is in addition to the usual code hints and stuff.

[Bassman59]

All C compilers I know of are actually "command line". Even MSVC. Visual Studio just adds an IDE on top of the MS comand line tools, which, BTW, you can also install without Visual Studio IDE.
Likewise, you can use a number of other free IDEs along with GCC. If you like the Visual Studio interface, you can use Visual Studio Code for instance.

Visual Studio can print your source files, Visual Studio Code can not.  I like VS Code, I use it all the time but I really hate having to open the file with another editor just to get a listing.

Ah, that's funny. I have VS Codium - mainly installed it to evaluate it, and occasionally to get a GUI frontend for GDB - it has an extension for that - but otherwise, I don't use it. Just checked and you're right, it doesn't support printing. Must be one of the few IDEs I've seen that did not!

The Atom developers also don't think that printing is important. See here, for example.

[newbrain]

I was trying to remember the very last time I felt the need to print code.
It finally came to me it was 1993, with some Fortran running on a MicroVAX!

I did not even notice VS Code was missing a print function, and I'm not able to tell whether e.g. Eclipse or Visual Studio do include one...