#970 32-bit Win7 - gcc Not Compatible With Version of Windows Running

[david rankin]

OS: Windows 7 - 32-bit
installer: codeblocks-20.03mingw-32bit-setup.exe

After installation, C::B autodetects the compiler fine, but then displays the window that it cannot find the compiler -- it just found and set gcc as the default??

C::B will not build or rebuild any project and no compiler output is shown in the IDE window. Investigating further, I open the command-prompt and check the version on gcc and receve the following ERROR:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\david>gcc --version
This version of c:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\MinGW\bin\gcc.exe is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need a x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher.

This is not the same as: http://forums.codeblocks.org/index.php/topic=23746.0.html

Thinking I may have accidentally installed with: codeblocks-20.03mingw-setup.exe I uninstalled C::B again and reinstalled with codeblocks-20.03mingw-32bit-setup.exe. Same problem. The files distributed will not run on 32-bit Windows 7. I had no problem with C::B 16 (which is what I was replacing)

If any further information is needed, please let me know.

[david rankin]

Oops, forgot to include line breaks in the error to make it easier to read:

C:\Users\david>gcc --version
This version of c:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\MinGW\bin\gcc.exe is not
compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your 
computer's system information to see whether you need a x86 (32-bit)
or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the 
software publisher.

[david rankin]

Is there a solution yet, or is my only option to downgrade Codeblocks to 16 or Codeblocks 17 for Windows 7 32-bit? We are pushing a month and this is somewhat of a showstopper bug for everyone with a 32-bit computer.

[Teodor Petrov]

Code::Blocks is not a compiler. You can use the old compiler with the new version of C::B or vice versa.

[david rankin]

The problem is with c:\Program Files\CodeBlocks\MinGW\bin\gcc.exe installed by the Code::Blocks installer codeblocks-20.03mingw-32bit-setup.exe. I didn't install some separate compler, Code::Blocks installed it for me.

I installed the full Code::Blocks with gcc MinGW and the build of the MinGW gcc package that Code::Blocks packages for install in 32-bit windows is NOT compatible with 32-bit windows (I'm sure it works fine with 64-bit windows).

That is the whole issue. Not Code::Blocks itself, but the MinGW compiler Code::Blocks includes in its codeblocks-20.03mingw-32bit-setup.exe installer package. That compiler from this new release of Code::Blocks 20.03 with its include gcc MinGW is the one that will not even run on 32-bit Win7 installs.

When you say I can use the old compiler -- No, that compiler is uninstalled by Code::Blocks when Code::Blocks is removed to install codeblocks-20.03mingw-32bit-setup.exe. I am removing Code::Blocks 20 and reinstalling Code::Blocks 17 and we will report if that compiler works fine on 32bit Win7 as Code::Blocks 16 did before.

[david rankin]

For example, I just uninstalled codeblocks-20.03mingw-32bit-setup.exe which installed the incompatible version of MinGW gcc and immediately installed codeblocks-17.12mingw-setup.exe and then opened Code::Blocks, selected a project and chose "Build" and all went fine. I then opened the Command.exe to check the gcc version and:

C:\Users\david>gcc --version
gcc (tdm-1) 5.1.0
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. 
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS 
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

No problems at all. So whatever version of MinGW is contained in codeblocks-20.03mingw-32bit-setup.exe it is NOT compatible with a 32-bit version of Windows 7.

[MASTAN]

The problem is that codeblocks-20.03mingw-32bit-setup.exe is bundled with 64-bit MinGW.

Until it's resolved you can install 32-bit MinGW separately from https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/

[david rankin]

Thank you! I'll re-install codeblocks-20.03 without mingw included and download and install the the 32-bit MinGW files from the sourceforge link.. After using codeblocks 16 and 17 without any problems, the 20.03mingw-32bit installer really left me scratching my head on why it would not run on 32bit Windows. I didn't know if all, or just part of the included MinGW was 64-bit, but I new at least the gcc executable was not compatible with win32 and likely the 64-bit version.

[César Pineda]

This problem has been around since the 20.03 version came out in April, 2020. I'm afraid it's going to take a while for them to upload another version. So, what I recommend is for you to reinstall the older version you used to work with (if you deleted it like I did). Hopefully, you will have Code::Blocks working as well as it used to soon. Here's a link to the oldest versions: www.codeblocks.org/downloads/5. Good luck!

[david rankin]

Thank you César,

I went back and installed codeblocks-20.03-32bit-setup.exe without the included 64-bit MinGW and installed a 32-bit MinGW with gcc 6.3. That is working fine. When there is a new complete Code::Blocks pakcage with a 32-bit MinGW, (20.04?) I'm ready to test it. Thank you for your help.

[Andrew Cottrell]

There are updated packages on sourceforge that were uploaded on 29-Dec-2020. They have some issues in that the bin files look correct, but the files include some x64 files in the root when they should have the x86 files. I do not have a Win10 32bit virtual box image to test it on.
If you get time you could try the zip file and let post here if it works for you.

[MASTAN]

I've tested Code Blocks Windows 32 bit (including 32 bit compiler)(file codeblocks-20.03-32bit-mingw-32bit-setup.exe) on 32-bit VM and it works, but CodeBlocks cannot detect MinGW because it expects files mingw32-gcc.exe and mingw32-g++.exe to be present. There are no such files, but there are gcc.exe, g++.exe, i686-w64-mingw32-c++.exe, i686-w64-mingw32-g++.exe.
Manually point folder to MinGW installation in CodeBlocks subfolder and rename compiler files in Compiler settings/Global compiler settings/Toolchain executables to existing files. Then it works fine.

[Miguel Gimenez]

This was fixed in a silent re-release of the 32 bit version.

[david rankin]

Awesome. Thank you!