If you are an ICT student, you can download Visual Studio 2017 from the Microsoft Imagine Premium Site.  This Integrated Development Environment (IDE) includes the core tools needed to compile and run source code on a Windows platform.  To access the compiler, download the IDE and install it.  The default Visual Studio 2015 IDE installation has some options disabled to minimize the size of the installation.  Select the Custom Installation and check that the C/C++ compiler is included as part of your own installation.

Once you have installed the compiler, you can access it by opening a command window from the Start menu at All Programs/Visual Studio 20??/Visual Studio Tools/Developer Command Prompt for VS20?? and typing

 cl /?

This command will list all of the compiler options. 

To compile a file named myFile.c follow the cl command by the source file name

 cl myFile.c

If your source code compiles successfully, this will produce an executable file named myFile.exe.  To execute this file, enter

 myFile

Note that the developer command window for the cl compiler differs from the normal command window. 

First Semester Startup

Tim McKenna's Visual Studio Introductory Demonstartion