Windows make - make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified - windows

Question

I'm using the C++ SFML Library on Windows with Visual Studio Code. The clean target is causing an error message to display and I'm wondering what's happening and how I can fix it. This particular project is just my setup project to ensure things are working. My working directory is as follows:
TEST
Main.cpp
Makefile
My Makefile is the following and I'm using mingw32-make. It creates Main.o and Main.exe. For my question, you can ignore most things, my question is in regards to the clean target.
# Makefile for static linking.
CXX = g++
CXXFLAGS =
EXE = Main
OBJ = Main.o
MODULES = -lsfml-graphics-s -lsfml-window-s -lsfml-system-s -lopengl32 -lfreetype -lwinmm -lgdi32 -mwindows
HEADERS = -IC:\SFML\include -DSFML_STATIC
LIBRARIES = -LC:\SFML\lib
$(EXE): $(OBJ)
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) -o $(EXE) $(OBJ) $(LIBRARIES) $(MODULES)
Main.o: Main.cpp
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) -c Main.cpp -o Main.o $(HEADERS)
clean:
rm $(EXE) $(OBJ)
I am able to compile and run the program but when I do the clean target, I get the following error message.
rm Main Main.o
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, rm Main Main.o, ...) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
mingw32-make: *** [Makefile:17: clean] Error 2
I thought the issue might be that the ".exe" file extension is not present because if I manually enter "rm Main" I get another error message.
rm : Cannot find path 'C:\Users\Benjamin\PROGRAMMING_PROJECTS\CPP_PROJECTS\SFML_VSCode\TestNoCMake\Main' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:1
+ rm Main
+ ~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (C:\Users\Benjam...estNoCMake\Main:String) [Remove-Item], ItemNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand
But if I change it to "rm Main.exe" it deletes the file successfully. Upon seeing that, I tried editing my Makefile to have the ".exe" in it.
clean
rm $(EXE).exe $(OBJ)
But, I still end up getting the image in the first picture.
Why is this happening and how can I fix this?
I've seen some other questions about this particular error but they weren't helpful. My setup is also based on this youtube tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZE700aaT5I&t=96s) and the person in the video did not have this issue. However, his tutorial did not cover the part where MinGW and make are installed, so maybe his and mine are different and it's causing the issue.

Answer 1

The error you're seeing is because the rm program is not found. It's not found because rm is a POSIX tool, and you are running on Windows. The GNU Make program on Windows can be built in various different ways, but the way you have built it means that when it wants to run a shell script it is invoking Windows cmd.exe as its shell.
The output you show from running the command "by hand" shows you are running it from PowerShell, not from cmd.exe so that's probably why you're seeing different behaviors.
You likely need to investigate the PATH variable and ensure that your POSIX tools appear in some directory on the PATH, if you want to write makefiles that use them.
Also I should mention, when writing makefiles you really always want to use forward slashes (/) and never backslashes when you are writing pathnames.