Installing Qt - 5 for windows

Question

This question might sound stupid. And there are other questions out there which are similar to this but they all seem dated.

I am new to Qt and trying to install Qt on windows 8 for the first time. On the download page of Qt I have found several type of installers and I am confused which one to use.

On the download page following installers are listed.

qt-windows-opensource-5.1.1-msvc2012-x86-offline.exe
qt-windows-opensource-5.1.1-msvc2012-x64-offline.exe

As of my understanding the above installers require MSVC libraries which are only installed by installing Microsoft Visual Studio 2012.

Is this correct?

I have also found another installer,

qt-windows-opensource-5.1.1-mingw48_opengl-x86-offline.exe

And I think that this installer uses the minGW libraries which can be installed by installing mingGW.

Is this correct?

Also,

I want my application to run on both 64 bit and 32 bit windows platforms. Will choosing any of the above packages make any difference?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

Those installers don't merely require "libraries", they require the presence of the compiler given in the filename. You need to have MSVC2012 installed for those MSVC downloads. For the minGW download, you need minGW gcc 4.8. Also, the minGW download is crippled as it requires native OpenGL support, normally you'd want the bundled ANGLE implementation of OpenGL. But ANGLE doesn't build properly with minGW.

So, what you really want is:

1. Download and install msvc2012 Express.

2. Download and install the x86 version of Qt, unless you have a really good reason for the 64 bit version.

Answer 2

You can use Visual Studio 2012/2010 Express, which is for free, from which you can use the msvc compiler. If you want your program to work on both 32 and 64 bit, then use the x86 version.