If you are a windows user and want to run the coin, I'd wager it is more straightforward to install linux (e.g., Ubuntu 12.04) in a virtual machine and compile the coin there rather than try to compile a windows binary from the source code (relatively painful, from what everyone says).  Virtualbox is free and works fine for this purpose.

With altcoin releases, this has the added benefit of "sandboxing" the new coin in a VM just in case there is harmful code designed to steal your wallets or what not.