Building boost 1.63.0 with MinGW 6.3.0 on win7

Question

I am learning C and C++ now and am trying to use the test Suite of Boost for TDD with Codeblocks.

After l a lot of Documentation reading, that didn´t help much, I found this:

I did it almost the same way on my System (but I had to run it as admin, what irritated me a bit, otherwise I got an Access Denied message):

So blabla add a few environmetal variables... Then in the prompt, i did:

.\bootstrap.bat gcc .\install toolset=gcc --prefix=C:...\boost_1_63_0\tools\build\ (without the toolset set again I got the Warning:"No Toolsets are configured" and a bunch more)

Now I get:

notice: could not find main target files notice: assuming it is a name of file to create. notice: could not find main target (x86)\boost_1_63_0\ notice: assuming it is a name of file to create. don´t know how to make files don´t know how to make (x86)\boost_1_63_0\ ...found 2 targets... ...can't find 2 targets...

and the binary doesn't get built.

This is the end of the my knowledge... Anything important I missed?

To learn C++ on Windows it is *way* easier to start with Visual Studio 2015, it's free. — rustyx, Feb 05 '17 at 16:12
Not only that, the Boost binaries for Visual C++ have already been built and available on SourceForge. — PaulMcKenzie, Feb 05 '17 at 16:16
***Anything important I missed?*** My guess from your partial path is you tried to have it install the binaries in c:\Program Files(x86) that is your problem. UAC will prevent this. Unless you are running from an elevated command prompt. A second problem is a path with spaces in it needs to be quoted. — drescherjm, Feb 05 '17 at 16:18
@RustyX: Yes I know that it works with VS2015...but I don't like the IDE. — Saitama, Feb 05 '17 at 16:25
@PaulMcKenzie I know there are the boost.built Binaries. Also not the question, but thanks for the tips. — Saitama, Feb 05 '17 at 16:27
@drescherjm yes I built it in C:\Program Files (x86)\boost_1_63_0\boost\tools\build\ So I need to put the whole Path in ""? Elevated as in Admin? And UAC? — Saitama, Feb 05 '17 at 16:29
Admin is not even enough. http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/e/elevated.htm — drescherjm, Feb 05 '17 at 16:38
@drescherjm It works now, You are officially my Hero of the last 3 Days!!! THX A LOT — Saitama, Feb 05 '17 at 16:43
Yeah, I just put it in C:\boost....and changed the EVs accordingly — Saitama, Feb 05 '17 at 16:47
maybe if @drescherjm summarizes his comments in an answer... ^^ — rustyx, Feb 05 '17 at 19:21

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

From the comments. Your main problem seems to have been you were trying to build and install boost into C:\Program Files (x86)\boost_1_63_0. Remember that Program Files is a UAC protected folder. It will require UAC elevation to write files to this location. See here for more info on UAC folder protection: What makes c:\Program Files UAC-protected?

A second problem is since your target path had a space in it you would have to quote the space when passing the command line parameters to build boost.

For both problems I recommend that instead of installing and building from C:\Program Files build from a different folder on your drive preferably one without spaces in the folder name.

Building boost 1.63.0 with MinGW 6.3.0 on win7

1 Answers1