I understand that Rust needs Windows build tools when you are interested in developing for Windows (easy example here: display a window, Windows forms/UI style, etc…).

But, when not dealing with Windows development (e.g. a web server, a backend application, a web scrapping script, etc…), does it still needs the Windows build tools?

Even for a “Hello World” program?

I feel like the ~10gb to ~20gb that Windows build tools requires on disk space for Rust to work is a hard stopper for many people, and I want to know if it’s 100% required or only when developing specifically for Windows.

In my case I decided to go with WSL + build-essential which is about 200mb.

Thank you in advance.