The MinGW GNU make command can be used to build STLport with different compilers - gcc (native compiler): Makefile : gcc.mak Notes: 1. Static library (archive) If you use the static version of the STLport libraries you have to define the _STLP_USE_STATIC_LIB macro in order to have your executable linked correctly. 2. Shell You will need MSys in order to build STLport. Be carefull about what make command you are using. STLport comes with a GNU make build system design for unix like platforms, make files have not been adapted for the Windows platform. So you have to use the make command coming with the MinGW package 'mingw32-make' and not the one coming with MSys that is a portage of the GNU make for Windows. 3. Threading configuration STLport libraries are built per default in order to be used in a multithreaded environment. Under MinGW it means that we use the '-mthread' compiler option. Don't forget to add it to your compiler command line too if you want to use STLport libraries. You can also ask for not thread safe libraries using the --no-thread configure script option. 4. Linking In this environment STLport is almost complete replacement for libstdc++. It means that when you were linking with libstdc++ (-lstdc++) you only have to replace it with STLport (-lstlport.5.2 for instance) and with libsupc++ containing language compiler support (lsupc++). However default gcc behavior is to automatically link libstdc++ and a number of other system libs. To avoid this behavior you have to use the -nodefaultlibs compiler option and explicitely give all libraries by yourself. See build of unit tests to see what library you might need, here is the list when this note was written: -lstlportg.5.2 -lsupc++ -lgcc_s -lmingw32 -lmingwex -lmsvcrt -lm -lmoldname -lcoldname -lkernel32 - Borland C++ compiler: Makefile : bcc.mak - Digital Mars C++ compiler: Makefile : dmc.mak