Usually I just install the binaries from Trolltech's website ( http://trolltech.com/developer/downloads/qt/windows ), and compile with their setup. There's a "Qt Shell" thing which is just cmd.exe with variables set. You can then run qmake and make as usual (they install MinGW for you). Distribute the binary with the relevant Qt dlls and the MinGW dll (I just copy them over from the bin dir of the Qt install), and it all Just Works from my (rather limited) experience.