title: Kinect for Windows on Windows7 with OpenCV compiled with GCC and NOT WITH visual C++!
body: <p>I have been stuck for weeks now and I about smash my face (or someone at MS) against the wall. I want to compile OpenCV with Kinect support using GCC. I have seen NO way to compile anything Kinect related on windows without visual c. Why the hell is that? Many of the libraries, like old OpenNI or freenect are cross compatible, yet on Windows you MUST use visual c++? I want to use GCC as all my projects (and the current one where I need kinect) is made and compiled with GCC (mingw on windows). I have tried EVERYTHING. Old OpenNI (&lt;2), OpenKinect, Windows SDK, everything. None compile without visual c++, or if they do, then they don't work for other reasons. Like OpenNI2 doesn't work with gcc at all, OpenNI&lt;2 doesn't work with Kinect for Windows, OpenKinect doesn't work for K4W and if it does, then it requires visual c++, windows sdk doesn't with anything else then visual c++. What is the point in writing code in c++ if you can only compile on one platform with 8gb software?</p>
  
  <p>So please, does anyone know ANY way to compile OpenCV that work with K4W and can be compile with NON visual C++ compiler?
  And even if I switch to Linux, I still can't use K4W as no library supports it on that platform. I wanted to use Ubuntu, but that seems to be out of the picture as well. So basically Kinect, as cool as it is, is very VERY limited on what it can run and compile on?</p>
  
  <p>There are many questions like this, but NONE has been answered. So I believe no one has been able to run it and no one is able to just come here and say that it is impossible. At least then I would know that I wasted about 2 weeks for nothing and I can trow my Kinect out.</p>