Thanks, but its not quite that simple, this is the first time i've even attempted to compile an exe
I downloaded and installed the package in the first link you posted
the MinGW Installation Manager presented me with a bunch of options for installing various things that i have no idea what they do.
I had to move the source files into the C:\MinGW\bin folder or else gcc could not be found and now i keep getting a zlib.h error that terminates the whole thing.
edit
I can't get a compiler set up so i just hex edited offzip.exe to include my new entry by overwriting an existing one.
i would rather not have to do this though
edit2
I downloaded and installed the package from the second link you posted
moved the source files to C:\TDM-GCC-32
opened the MingGW command prompt and pasted the line you have above
still getting a zlib.h error that terminates the compiling.
edit3
i downloaded zlib-1.2.8 from zlib.net and placed zlib.h and zconf.h in C:\TDM-GCC-32\include
now i'm getting a "cannot find -lz" error and don't know what this means
edit4
i think i'm getting closer, i downloaded libz-1.2.7-1-mingw32-dev.tar.lzma from here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/f ... b-1.2.7-1/and placed the files in the C:\TDM-GCC-32\include and C:\TDM-GCC-32\lib folders
i can compile the offzip source into an exe but when i run it an error comes up and says
i need libz-1.dll so i download libz-1.2.7-1-mingw32-dll-1.tar.lzma from here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/f ... b-1.2.7-1/and now i can run offzip and it works, but it shouldn't need this dll
i know this can't be right but i just don't know exactly what files i need to compile it the way it was meant to