Mingw runtime error - c++

Question

I'm a new user of MinGW, and I have already run into problems. When attempting to compile a very simple Hello world c++ program, I get an error. I type the command:
g++ hello.cpp -o hello.exe
and then I get the message dialog:
Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Runtime Error!
Program: c:\mingw\bin\...\libexec\gcc\mingw32\4.8.1\cc1plus.exe
R6034:
An application has made an attempt to load the C Runtime library incorrectly.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.
followed immediately by this message dialog:
cc1plus.exe - Program error
The application failed to initialize properly
(0xc0000142). Press OK to close application.
And then the usual junk about Windows finding a solution online.
I used the automatic installer mingw-get-setup.exe and simply followed the instructions. I chose the installation folder to be C:\mingw, and in the MinGW Installation Manager, I chose to install mingw-developer-toolkit, mingw32-base, mingw32-gcc-g++, mingw32-gcc-objc and msys-base. As suggested in the installation guide, I added PATH in the Environment Variables.
The code I was trying to compile was:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char ** argv){
cout << "hello world" << endl;
return 0;
}
I also tried to compile a similar ANSI-C code with the command:
gcc hello.c -o hello.exe
and I got the same error.
I tried the command in cmd.exe as well as in MSYS and got the error in both cases. My operating system is Windows Vista Home Premium, and I have Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 installed on it. I mention this because I tried to do the same installation on a windows 7 computer without VC++ and here the compiler worked without problems. Does this mean that you can't have MinGW and VC++ on the same computer?

Answer 1

The problem was, as suggested in the comments, that programs other than the Gnu Compiler had left values in the %PATH% variable. What I did not initially notice, was the fact that there are two %PATH% variables, one for the user and one for the system, and both can interfere with the MinGW installation.
The system %PATH% variable contains (at least on my PC) quite a lot of entries and removing all of them might not be a good idea. In my case, however, it was sufficient to remove entries from MatLab and Texnic Center. Afterwards, g++ and gcc worked flawless.