The make utility expects to use a file named Makefile. If you just type make, it will find that file automatically. If the makefile has some other name, use the -f option. If you just give the file name without -f, then make will interpret it as the target that it should figure out how to make.
A lot of tools that only come as source assume that you'll use Visual C++ to build on Windows, even if they assume you'll use G++ everywhere else. Look for a Visual C++ makefile; it's usually named Makefile.mak. Then run nmake.
But if you only have files named Makefile.in and Makefile.am, then you don't yet have a makable environment. Makefile.in is one of the inputs to the configure script, which will construct the real makefile and maybe a header or two that are specific to your environment, based on tests that configure runs.
In the end, the package you've downloaded might not really be compilable on Windows. Even under Cygwin, you can expect to have to make a few changes to the source code if it hasn't been written with Windows in mind.
Makefile.in will contain the basics of the final makefile. Back before I knew what I was supposed to do, I simply renamed Makefile.in to Makefile and got pretty far. You can try using that file as a starting point for constructing a real Windows makefile, for whichever compiler target you choose. It will take patience; just keep following the compiler messages until you don't see any more. (And then comes the linker. Hope you don't need too many other libraries!)
answered 2009-02-13T04:21:24.257