Windows 7 - 'Make' Is Not Recognized as an Internal or External Command, Operable Program or Batch File
I Have Windows 7 and Tried to Use the 'Make' Command but 'Make' Is Not Recognized as an Internal or External Command. I Did Start -> Cmd -> Run -> Make, Which...
I have Windows 7 and tried to use the 'make' command but 'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command.
I did Start -> cmd -> run -> make, which outputs:
'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.
Then I typed 'mingw32-make' instead of 'make' (Start -> cmd -> run -> mingw32-make) and I get the same output:
'mingw32-make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.
What shall I do next in order to fix this problem?
12 Answers
Your problem is most likely that the shell does not know where to find your make program. If you want to use it from "anywhere", then you must do this, or else you will need to add the full path each time you want to call it, which is quite cumbersome. For instance:
"c:\program files\gnuwin32\bin\make.exe" option1=thisvalue option2=thatvalue
This is to be taken as an example, it used to look like something like this on XP, I can't say on W7. But gnuwin32 used to provide useful "linux-world" packages for Windows. Check details on your provider for make.
So to avoid entering the path, you can add the path to your PATH environment variable. You will find this easily.
To make sure it is registered by the OS, open a console (run cmd.exe) and entering $PATH should give you a list of default pathes. Check that the location of your make program is there.
In Windows10, I solved this issue by adding C:\MinGW\bin to Path and then called it using MinGW32-make not make.
This is an old question, but none of the answers here provide enough context for a beginner to choose which one to pick.
What is make?
make is a traditional Unix utility which reads a Makefile to decide what programs to run to reach a particular goal. Typically, that goal is to build a piece of software from a set of source files and libraries; but make is general enough to be used for various other tasks, too, like assembling a PDF from a collection of TeX source files, or retrieving the newest versions of each of a list of web pages.
Besides encapsulating the steps to reach an individual target, make reduces processing time by avoiding to re-execute steps which are already complete. It does this by comparing time stamps between dependencies; if A depends on B but A already exists and is newer than B, there is no need to make A. Of course, in order for this to work properly, the Makefile needs to document all such dependencies.
A: B
commands to produce A from B
Notice that the indentation needs to consist of a literal tab character. This is a common beginner mistake.
Sarah Jenkins is a veteran tech journalist with over 12 years of experience covering artificial intelligence, mobile innovations, and digital ethics. Her insights have appeared in leading technology publications worldwide.
