I need to work on C++ project on my windows machine. My project will consist of various classes(.h and .cpp) as well as the startup file to start the application. The preliminary design is simple but the application has the potential to gain complexity as time goes by. What I need here is ideas to set up the C++ project compiler/IDE/Makefile etc..etc. as well as some standard tools besides Visual C++ to compile/build/link projects such as these on a Windows OS.
I've used mingw and netbeans to develop on Windows. I chose Netbeans because it isn't excessively complicated to learn and is cross platform. I didn't like eclipse because it was in my opinion overly complex and the debugger didn't work for me in windows.