GNUstep and Windows

GNUstep runs on Windows and thus allows to develop and deploy your application on this common platform.
However, Windows is quite different from the typical Unix(-like) environment GNUstep is run on, so there are many things about care, starting from installation up to the user interface.

Appearance

GNUstep's appearance can be customized using Themes. If you do not want to run with the NeXT-style interface, see if themes suit you.

The WinUX Theme strives for the most native appearance and integration. WinUX draws most of the controls natively and adds native in-window menus by using the Windows theme engine, thus it will work with Windows XP, Vista, Seven and Windows 8 also with third-themes.
Please mind that the Windows HIGs are different, thus test your application with it. For example, currently applications without windows (e.g. Document-based application which do not handle Untitled documents) will have issues.

Screenshots

Native, integrated File Panels. Themed windows and native menus.

Getting it!

GNUstep runs on windows though the MinGW environment. Generated applications, even if targeted stand-alone, will require MinGW to run.

Since MinGW is mostly undeveloped nowadays, a ready-made installer is no longer provided.
We recommend installing MinGW64 (or MinGW32 at your choiuce) from MSYS2 and then compiling and installing like on a Unix system. Read the guide on our Wiki.

MinGW will not transform Windows into a POSIX compatible system, but it allows the application to run almost natively, this means the code cannot use several typical standard Unix functions or they might be different.

This could be achived by using Cygwin instead, but that target is not supported currently by GNUstep. It used to work in the past but it is unmaintained.