GCC C++ “Hello World” program -> .exe is 500kb big when compiled on Windows. How can I reduce its size?

Question

I just recently started learning C++ - I am using nuwen\'s version of MingW on Windows, using NetBeans as an IDE (I have also MSDN AA Version of MSVC 2008, though I don\'t u

Answer 1

The

#include 

causes a lot of the standard library to be linked in, at least with g++. If you are really concerned about executable size, try replacing all uses of iostreams with printf or similar. This will typically give you a smaller, faster executable (I got yours down to about 6K) at the cost of convenience and type-safety.