Here are some recommended C/C++ compilers for Windows/DOS:

Good C compiler for Windows programs: LCC (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32/). This is "just" freeware, not open-soure or free software.

Good C++ compiler for Windows programs: Dev-C++ (http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html). This is a GPL:d IDE for the GPL:d Mingw (included), very free .

Good C compiler for DOS: Borland Turbo C 2.01 (http://community.borland.com/museum/borland/software/TC201.zip). Free for "personal use". I would recommend you to get Turbo C++ instead, it has a better compiler.

Another good C compiler for DOS: Pacific C (http://www.hitech.com.au/products/pacific.html). This is freeware now, not like the Borland "for personal use only" license. It's nice, but has it own formats for inline assembler, object and library files etc.

Good C++ compiler for DOS:
Borland Turbo C++ 1.01 (http://community.borland.com/article/images/21751/tcpp101.zip). Also free for "personal use".

Other compilers:

DJGPP is a 32-bit compiler, I wouldn't recommend it for DOS programming.

Microsoft compilers: Will never get free .

There are many other free or shareware compilers, but I think I've listed the best ones here. I think LCC, Dev-C++ and Turbo C++ are the only C/C++ compilers you need.

/ Robert

wasn't there a Win version of GCC ?? GCC rulz =) [addsig]

Well, you can do much with DJGPP, but I don't recommend it for DOS programs, but for Win programs, it is probably good (I haven't tested it for Windows).

yes, there's gcc for windows, it's called egcss. djgpp windows-development?? I'm not even sure if it works with mingw... well, egcss works with mingw and dev c++ does, too. I've never heard of people doing windows-programming with djgpp... there's some library called RXS to do this but I don't think it's very good...
Not sure, though, correct me if I'm wrong.
fabs

egcss?

i know there's a 'egcs' compiler, but that's for linux, too, and it's related to gcc. Actually it IS gcc with other verison numbers. In the linux lernel docs you can read 'compile with gcc xxx or egcs xxx'. I also sa w atable somewhere that said what gcc corresponmded to what egcs.

I guess it's another tree or something, i reckon some distros come with egcs, other with gcc.

yeah, sorry, it's called egcs but it's available for dos as well as unix-systems. I've used it many times when I was in windows.
fabs

Yeah, the GCC ports can be used for Win apps, but don't do DOS programming in them.

huh??? DJGPP is the windows gcc port and all you can do in it is dos-programming!
fabs

hhhmmm ...
I always though there was a GCC for windows/dos , also named GCC ... but , maybe it's my miss
[addsig]

i've searched about egcs gcc stuff a bit, and have come to the following results:

Egcs stands for "Experimental/Enhanced Gnu Compiler System".

It was started to develop a compiler on the basis of gcc faster. egcs included more patches, imprvements speedups, that wouldn't go into gcc because gcc had to be stable and well-tested.

The egcs project doesn't run anymore now, the egcs was so successful and stable that it became the official GNU C compiler/collection.

That is, egcs was a sort of gcc fork that would get pacthes and speedups in faster, and that got so good that it became the official gcc.

For some time, the egcs was also gcc developpment, development was dfone on egcs, and if it worked, released a s a new version of gcc, that's why some egcs and gcc have different numbers but are exactly the same.

ahhhh, ok. Thanx fsvara
fabs

Now I feel a bit "smarter" than before =)
[addsig]

Yes, learning what ecgs stands for raised my IQ too .

hehe , but , I really didn't know that before
[addsig]

I didn't know either. Nobody did, that's why svara had to do some research

lol
so he didn't know it either until he searched for it ... hehe
[addsig]

I never really found an MS-DOS compiler that I actually liked. The best I've used is Borland's Turbo C 3.11. It's not free, but it was pretty good. I think it was the compiler used for Wolfenstein-3D and the Commander Keen games (my favourite). I keep it around just in case they release the Keen source code. Another compiler I've tried is Pacific-C which was also pretty good. However, I thought the library included with it lollipoped a lot... maybe it's just me. [addsig]

hey, but if you're using windows, M$ VC++ also isn't bad. OK, it's from M$, but besides that the program itself isn't that bad, I also used it for a while
[addsig]

The gcc port for Windows is Mingw. The DOS port is djgpp. There are more, just can't bring up the names right now.

anyways, also if the compiler takes some time to compile, you should get the once with the best "binary performance" .... Flikm, SilStrike and I had a interesting conversion about this today in the IRC chan =)
[addsig]