How to use "make" with Windows and Anaconda?

Question

I am attempting to follow this tutorial to learn how to use the Cookiecutter folder structure for data science projects. My machine is running Windows 10 and I am using Anaconda.

It seems that the Cookiecutter project structure relies heavily on Makefiles, as does the above tutorial I am trying to follow.

Is there a way to use make on Windows and while using Anaconda?

What I've tried....

The first step is to check my installations. I open Anaconda command prompt and run each of the following.

conda --version
make --version
git --version
cookiecutter --version

When I run make --version I get the following error. 'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

When I attept to install make by running conda install -c anaconda make, I get:

PackagesNotFoundError: The following packages are not available from current channels:

  - make

Looking at the Anaconda make documentation here, I see it is not available for Windows.

More searching led me to m2w64-make, with documentation found here.

I open an Anaconda command window and install the package using conda install -c conda-forge m2w64-make. Installation appears to run with no errors.

However when I attempt to run this package, nothing happens.

When I run m2w64-make --version I get:

'm2w64-make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

When I run make --version I get:

'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

This Stack Overflow post appears to be very similar at first, but all of the answers tell the OP to use Chocolatey, and do not give an option for Anaconda.

Answer 1

Using conda, it has a package called m2w64-make that shows when using conda list, but you should also have a folder in the environment with a path .../Library/mingw-w64/bin, which contains the file mingw32-make.exe. If so, 1) add this folder path to your PATH system environment variables. Then 2) in a cmd line with admin privileges, type mklink make.exe mingw32-make.exe. Open a new cmd line and test make --version.

Answer 2

Running mingw32-make --version works.