Reduce MSVC compiler executable size?

Question

I have a simple hello world program, but the .exe is somehow 100kb big.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
  printf("Hello world");

  return 0;
}

I'm currently using a .bat file to call the commands.

@echo off

call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x86

cl /nologo /O2 /W3 ./Main.c /FeHello.exe

I am using MSVC compiler from Visual Studio 2019 to compile with the command prompt.

Thanks

Answer 1

Large size is caused by linking runtime statically. /MD switch can be used in order to link it dynamically and shrink size of the executable.