g++ programs for windows 98 - g++

Question

I am trying to make programs for an old computer running Windows 98 second edition, but they won't run.
The programs are written in c++, and they are compiled with MinGW (g++ version 4.8.1) installed on a Windows Vista computer. For testing I tried this simple Hello World program:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(){
cout <<"hello world";
return 0;
}
For compiling I used this command:
g++ hello.cpp -o hello.exe
When trying to run this program on the Windows 98 computer I get the following message:
A required .DLL file, LIBGCC_S_DW2-1.DLL, was not found.
So to make the executable as independent of dll-files as possible, I tried compiling the program with the command:
g++ hello.cpp -static -o hello.exe
But on trying the program on the Windows 98 computer, I now get the message:
The hello.exe file is linked to missing export MSVCRT.DLL:_fstat64
To analyze the problem, I tried a few things. And I noticed that compiling the same code with the same command using g++ version 2.95.2 instead, the program was able to run on the Windows 98 machine. However, I would prefer not to use this old version of g++ as it contains a few problematic bugs.
I also noticed that a similar program made in regular c (compiled with gcc version 4.8.1) also worked fine on the old computer, but I would prefer not to use regular c as this would require rewriting a lot of c++ code.
So the question is: how can I make c++ programs compiled with g++ 4.8.1 (or later) run on a Windows 98 machine?

Answer 1

Late but better than never
found out later versions of MinGW doesn't run on windows 98 giving the error "A required .DLL file, LIBGCC_S_DW2-1.DLL, was not found."
the version of MinGW i tried and gave the error was this one (6.3.0-1)
(i think you are referring to the dev version there, probably the bin version you had was more modern)
oddly, i recalled that time ago i compilled a build using Code::Blocks using MinGW that ran in windows 98, so i downloaded Code::Blocks version 17.12, and compilled the very same exe using the MinGW provided there directly, and worked just fine
and noticed it was a fairly older version ((tdm-1) 5.1.0)
idk which was the latest version MinGW compilations worked on windows 98, i'll write a post about it in their forum soon
for the record, i'll show the pics of the test i did
on MinGW 6.3.0-1:
on MinGW (tdm-1) 5.1.0:
so, to answer the question; yes, you can make programs for windows 98 using MinGW's g++ greater than version 4.8.1 (up to a certain version, i'll ask in the forum for more information)
EDIT: no need to, found this:
"The default mode is C++98 for GCC versions prior to 6.1, and C++14 for GCC 6.1 and above. You can use command-line flag -std to explicitly specify the C++ standard. For example,
-std=c++98, or -std=gnu++98 (C++98 with GNU extensions)
-std=c++11, or -std=gnu++11 (C++11 with GNU extensions)
-std=c++14, or -std=gnu++14 (C++14 with GNU extensions), default mode for GCC 6.1 and above.
-std=c++17, or -std=gnu++17 (C++17 with GNU extensions), experimental.
-std=c++2a, or -std=gnu++2a (C++2a with GNU extensions), experimental."
i added the -std=c++98 -std=gnu++98 flags to the 6.3.0-1 compiler and it worked fine on Windows 98 SE

Answer 2

You can usually find msvcrt.dll by installing IE4
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gcc.htm