You had to install Visual Studio then the Windows SDK then probably other libraries. Then spend an afternoon to set environment variables and project settings u

You had to install Visual Studio then the Windows SDK then probably other libraries. Then spend an afternoon to set environment variables and project settings until it can compile anything. Dev C++ and code blocks had a an easier start, although they were bugged to death and only used for hello world projects. Borland is paid software. There was a free edition was very challenging to obtain. That certainly contributed to the death of the company. If we talk about two decades strictly. There was no internet so you couldn't find any tutorial or help page. Books were selling for $50 each and you couldn't Ctrl+F them. On Linux a newbie can "gcc -o helloworld.c" to compile his first C file. Then there is a massive gap until he will be able to compile multiple files with make, auto tools, manage external libraries and package anything to run on another computer. Now it's 2018 and Linux still doesn't have a C++ debugger.