Qt application development without MSVC on Windows

[Algos]

What are my options to make a Qt based application on a Windows 7 OS which does not have Visual Studio suite installed? I have developed the application on Linux and the next step is to build it on Windows.

On a Windows 7 machine, I have Qt creator installed. I have Eclipse. I can install mingw. I am looking for the "best" way to compile my Qt application on Windows with any of these without having to buy the full Visual Studio software.

By "best", it may mean with smallest size. That means all targer Windows machines should have Qt installed. Or, it could mean a bigger executable with no need to have Qt installed on the target machine. Still looking into all these factors.

So, what are your favorite options in this scenario. Can I use MS' free compiler with Creator? How do you folks advise me to start "right" in this?

Thanks.

[skycrestway]

The full version of Visual Studio does not cost anything. This is what I am using.

[ars]

Hello,

I suggest to install the precompiled Qt + MinGW package for Windows from Qt download site. This gives you a complete 32 bit development system including all Qt libraries (debug and release), all development tools like Qt designer, qmake, ... plus the complete compiler/debugger toolchain. For distributing your binary to other Windows machines you just have to package your executable + used dlls (release mode) + a couple of plugins into an installer. It is not required that the other target machines have installed a complete development environment.

Best regards
ars

[Algos]

The full version of Visual Studio does not cost anything. This is what I am using.

Interesting. Just to be clear, does it include the compiler (32 as well as 64 bit) as well as the Visual Debugger? If yes, then what is it missing compared to the version one buys commercially?

Thanks.