I'm surprised Ubuntu doesn't come with gcc.
1) Go to visualstudio.com
2) click Downloads
if you want the full IDE:
3) choose between downloading free version of a trial of the professional version
if you just want the command line tools
3) scroll down until you find C++ Build Tools and download that
4) double click the file you just downloaded.
5) Done
Uninstall or upgrade is still a nightmare, but installing it on a PC which has never had it isn't bad.
iwr https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1 -UseBasicParsing | iex
restart prompt, then: choco install mingw
(no machine reboots, disclaimer: I work at MSR, nothing related to this)