mingw minimal windows exe using SDL (exe size ~9K)

minimal size mingw exe example main.c

// for ExitProcess
#include <windows.h>

#include <SDL2/SDL.h>

SDL_Renderer *x_renderer;
SDL_Window *x_window;
SDL_Texture *x_fontTex;

int nocrt_main( int argc, char *argv[] ) {
    if ( SDL_InitSubSystem( SDL_INIT_VIDEO ) < 0 ) {
        return -1;
    }

    x_window = SDL_CreateWindow( NULL,
                                SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, 
                                SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, 
                                1024,
                                768,
                                SDL_WINDOW_RESIZABLE );
    if( ! x_window ) {
        return -1;
    }

#ifdef HINT_OPENGL // if we want to be consistent with linux
    SDL_SetHint( SDL_HINT_RENDER_DRIVER, "opengl" );
#endif

    x_renderer = SDL_CreateRenderer( x_window, -1, SDL_RENDERER_ACCELERATED );
    if ( ! x_renderer ) {
        return -1;
    }

    SDL_SetWindowTitle( x_window, "No CRT" );

    int run = 1;
    while( run ) {
        SDL_Event event;
        while ( SDL_PollEvent( &event ) ) {
            switch( event.type ) {
                case SDL_QUIT:
                    run = 0;
                    break;
            }
        }
        SDL_Delay( 20 );
    }

    // just for completeness, don't see a point 
    SDL_DestroyRenderer( x_renderer );
    SDL_DestroyWindow( x_window );
    SDL_Quit();

    // the exe never quits without it, SDL bug maybe?
    ExitProcess( 0 );
    return 0;
}

// ? if mainCRTStartup/WinMainCRTStartup is not defined, the linker will pick the 
// ? first function it encounters to be the entry point

#ifdef M_CONSOLE
void Print( int msgSize, const char *msg ) {
    HANDLE conOut = GetStdHandle( STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE );
    WriteFile( conOut, msg, msgSize, NULL, NULL );
}

int WINAPI mainCRTStartup( void ) {
    const char msg[] = "Hello World Console\n";
    Print( sizeof( msg ) - 1, msg );
    return nocrt_main( 0, NULL );
}
#else
int WINAPI WinMainCRTStartup(void) {
    return nocrt_main( 0, NULL );
}
#endif

minimal size mingw exe example Makefile

# Thanks goes to https://nullprogram.com/blog/2016/01/31/ -- Small, Freestanding Windows Executables
no_crt.exe: main.c
	x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc -o no_crt.exe main.c -pedantic-errors \
		-std=c99 -Wall -Wextra \
		-O3 \
		-fno-tree-loop-distribute-patterns \
		-fno-stack-protector -mno-stack-arg-probe \
		-mconsole -DM_CONSOLE \
		-I/usr/local/x86_64-w64-mingw32/include \
		`sdl2-config --static-libs` \
		-nostdlib -nolibc -nostartfiles \
	   	-lkernel32

# -fno-tree-loop-distribute-patterns -- prevent intoducing memset
# -mconsole -DM_CONSOLE -- remove this for GUI mode. is there a way to detect console link flag without our macro?
# -fno-stack-check -fno-stack-protector -mno-stack-arg-probe -- prevent linking to stack checks, 9k no change in my example
# -ffreestanding -- A freestanding environment is one in which the standard library may not exist, and program startup may not necessarily be at "main". The option -ffreestanding directs the compiler to not assume that standard functions have their usual definition. No difference in size
# -nolibc -nostartfiles -nodefaultlibs -- no difference for size
# -lkernel32 -- for ExitProcess