All,
like most Windows user I have always struggled to build Ceres, especially with suitesparse support. Recently I was able to build Ceres in the Windows Subsystem for Linux for Windows 10 (also known as Bash for Windows) and I have been very happy with the result. This is essentially an application and a device driver that translate all the linux kernel system calls into windows system calls. The actual coverage is not 100% but it seems that what you need to run gcc is working pretty well. The main advantage over an Ubuntu instance running in a Windows virtual machine is the much lower load to the OS.
If you want to know more you can find more details here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/aboutDisclaimer: I am a Microsoft employee ;)
Thanks ,
-Arrigo