Take the file from the download page, then follow the steps for your operating system. Setup asks for no administrator rights and ends with VS Code open on the sample project. Five to fifteen minutes, depending on your network.
Downloads are open to students of the schools that teach the course: you sign in with the address your school gave you, and each student downloads once a week.
Getting the file
On the download page, enter your first name, surname and the email address your school gave you.
The row tagged recommended is the one for the system you are on. The links stay valid for 24 hours, so a download that breaks off resumes from the same link.
Windows has two files: the offline setup carries the compiler and VS Code inside it, while the online setup is small and fetches them while it installs. On a slow or filtered school network, take the offline one.
macOS has two files. Apple menu → About This Mac says which is yours: a chip line starting with Apple M means Apple Silicon, one that says Intel means the Intel build.
Windows
Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit. Both the compiler and VS Code install into your user folder, so no administrator password is asked for.
Run the .exe you downloaded. If Chrome says the file is not commonly downloaded, open the three-dot menu on the download bar and choose Keep.
If the blue “Windows protected your PC” screen appears, click More info first, then Run anyway. That screen says the file is unsigned, not that anything is wrong with it.
Setup finishes and CForge opens. Pressing Install installs VS Code, the C compiler (gcc) and the debugger (gdb), in that order.
If VS Code is open, CForge asks you to close it: a running editor locks its own files during an install.
The last step creates the sample project, compiles it and runs it. If you see the “Merhaba Dunya!” line, the environment works.
VS Code starts with ilkprojem.c open, and F5 compiles and runs it. The last screen says where the project is: usually Documents, or C:\devkit\projects when the username has non-ASCII characters or Documents has been redirected into OneDrive.
macOS
A separate file for Apple Silicon and Intel. The compiler comes from Apple's own Command Line Tools package, which is why you will see one approval dialog.
Double-click the .dmg you downloaded and drag CForge onto the Applications folder beside it. Do not run it from inside the dmg.
Double-click CForge in Applications. The “Apple could not verify CForge” dialog appears; press Done. You cannot skip this: the button in the next step does not appear until that dialog has been raised.
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and scroll down to the Security section. Press Open Anyway next to the “CForge was blocked” line, confirm with your password or Touch ID, then press Open Anyway once more in the dialog that follows.
That button only shows up after you have tried to open the app, and only for about an hour. If it is not there, go back to step two and double-click CForge once more.
CForge opens. When you press Install, Apple's own dialog appears for the compiler: press Install there too. Setup waits for it to finish; nothing else is needed from you.
VS Code installs into Applications, the sample project is created and compiled, and VS Code starts with ilkprojem.c open. F5 compiles and runs it.
Linux
One archive, x64. The compiler comes from your distribution's own package manager, so there is one command you run yourself.
Unpack the archive where you downloaded it, then run it. The commands are in the Terminal section below.
CForge looks for a compiler and, failing to find one, shows the command for your distribution — for example sudo apt install build-essential gdb. Paste it into a terminal and run it.
apt, dnf, yum, pacman, zypper, apk and emerge are all recognised. When the install finishes, CForge notices the compiler by itself and carries on from where it stopped.
VS Code installs into your user folder and is added to the application menu; nothing is written system-wide. At the end ilkprojem.c opens, and F5 compiles and runs it.
The warnings, and what they mean
CForge carries no signing certificate: one costs a yearly fee and a company registration that a student project cannot carry. None of the warnings below mean anything is wrong with the file — if you want to be sure, compare the SHA-256 of what you downloaded with the one on the download page.
Chrome
“This file isn't commonly downloaded.” Open the three-dot menu on the download bar and choose Keep.
Windows
“Windows protected your PC.” More info → Run anyway. SmartScreen shows this for every unsigned file that has not yet been downloaded enough times.
macOS
“Apple could not verify …” This dialog's only button is Done and it names no way out; the way out is System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. The old right-click → Open trick was removed in macOS 15.
Antivirus
If something quarantines the file, compare the SHA-256 and restore it from quarantine if it matches. Do not switch protection off.
SHA-256
The download page prints each file's SHA-256 next to it. The commands below compute the one for your copy; if the two match, the file did not change on the way.
From a terminal
Setup itself is a window job; these are the command-line equivalents of verifying the file and clearing the download tag the operating system puts on it. The * in each name stands in for the version number.
Windows · PowerShell. The first prints the SHA-256; the second removes the “downloaded from the internet” tag, so the SmartScreen screen never appears.
cd $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads
Get-FileHash .\CForge-windows-offline-*.exe -Algorithm SHA256
Unblock-File .\CForge-windows-offline-*.exe
macOS. The third command deletes the quarantine tag; it is all you need if you would rather not go through Privacy & Security.
shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/CForge-macos-*.dmg
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/CForge.app
open -a CForge
macOS · repairing the compiler. If setup stopped with “'stdio.h' file not found”, the compiler is there and its headers are not: a macOS upgrade left the Command Line Tools behind. This reinstalls them; it asks for your password and opens Apple's own installer.