'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command

# 'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command

The error "'make' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file" occurs when we run the make command on Windows without having make installed. To solve the error, install make using Chocolatey.

If you have Chocolatey installed:

1. Click on the Search bar and type PowerShell.

2. Right-click on the PowerShell application and click "Run as administrator".

3. Run the following command to install make.

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choco install make -y

To install Chocolatey:

1. Open PowerShell as an administrator.

2. Run the following command.

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Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

3. Wait for the command to complete.
4. Type choco to make sure Chocolatey is installed.

Now that you have Chocolatey installed, run the following command to install make.

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choco install make -y

Note that your shell should still be run using elevated permissions.

Now you should be able to use the make command.

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make --version

To create a simple Makefile:

1. Click on the Search bar, type cmd and start the Command Prompt.
2. Start a notepad editor by typing notepad in the shell.

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notepad

3. Click on "File" > "Save as".

4. Name your file "Makefile" with double quotes around the name. The double quotes are important because we need to create a file named Makefile without an extension.

5. Click on "Save".

6. Add the following targets to the Makefile.

Note that copy-pasting the commands below might fail because you must use tabs for the indentation in a Makefile.

It's much better to manually type the 4 lines and make sure to use tabs for the indentation.

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first:
    echo "first message"

second:
    echo "second message"

Now, ensure your shell is in the same folder as the Makefile and run the make command.

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make

When you run the make command without specifying a target, the first target is run.

You can specify a target immediately after the make command.

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make second

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• 'choco' is not recognized as an internal or external command
• 'eval' is not recognized as an internal or external command
• 'export' is not recognized as an internal or external command
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• 'nano' is not recognized as an internal or external command
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• How to install and use 'jq' on Windows