title: Autoconf and configure.exe on Windows
body: <p>I'm trying to build a Linux-developed library on Windows. This library requires glib and one of the gdk libraries. While I can find 32-bit Windows binaries for most of the dependent libraries, I'd much rather compile everything myself.</p>
  
  <p>I have very little C/C++ experience on Linux, but I already figured out that <code>./configure</code> is required to get most of the compilation errors that are caused by platform incompatibilities. Unfortunately, all the packages have a <code>configure</code> shell script that can't really run on Windows.</p>
  
  <p>I've installed <code>autoconf</code> for Windows, hoping to create a Windows <code>configure</code> script from <code>configure.ac</code>, but the Windows autoconf is <em>also</em> a bunch of shell scripts that can't really run on Windows.</p>
  
  <p>What should I do? Must I install Cygwin?</p>