Visual studio community 2017 LNK2019 unresolved external symbol - c++

Question

I've been looking around for the whole day and I find no solution. Im using opengl extensions glew, glfw and glm. Visual Studio Community 2017 throws up the exception: Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State
Error LNK2019 unresolved external symbol __imp__glewInit#0 referenced in function _main Name Directory.
My project is located: C:\Users\timbucktoo\Desktop\Projects\Scape\Scape
My extensions are located: C:\Users\timbucktoo\Desktop\Projects\Scape\Scape\OpenGL Exetensions Binaries\unzipped
I have the c++ include directories added: C:\Users\timbucktoo\Desktop\Projects\Scape\Scape\OpenGL Exetensions Binaries\unzipped\glm-0.9.8.4 %281%29\glm;
C:\Users\timbucktoo\Desktop\Projects\Scape\Scape\OpenGL Exetensions Binaries\unzipped\glfw-3.2.1.bin.WIN64\glfw-3.2.1.bin.WIN64\include;
C:\Users\timbucktoo\Desktop\Projects\Scape\Scape\OpenGL Exetensions Binaries\unzipped\glew-2.0.0-win32\glew-2.0.0\include;
I have the Linker general library directories added:
C:\Users\timbucktoo\Desktop\Projects\Scape\Scape\OpenGL Exetensions Binaries\unzipped\glew-2.0.0-win32\glew-2.0.0\lib\Release\x64;
Visual studio has told me I have a x86 machine, I am not fully aware of what this means but from what I have assumed this machine is running 64-bit windows.
I have tried mixing up all the options like the different add directories/libraries option and I can come up with no solution. This may have been asked before but not on the visual studio community 2017. Please help. THanks. :)
Oh and here is the code which I also tried using the pragma comment with glew32.lib.
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <GL\glew.h>
#include <GLFW\glfw3.h>
#include <glm\glm.hpp>
int main()
{
if (!glfwInit())
{
fprintf(stderr, "Failed to initialize GLFW\n");
return -1;
}
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_SAMPLES, 4); // 4x antialiasing
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MAJOR, 3); // We want OpenGL 3.3
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MINOR, 3);
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_OPENGL_FORWARD_COMPAT, GL_TRUE); // To make MacOS happy; should not be needed
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_OPENGL_PROFILE, GLFW_OPENGL_CORE_PROFILE); //We don't want the old OpenGL
// Open a window and create its OpenGL context
GLFWwindow* window; // (In the accompanying source code, this variable is global)
window = glfwCreateWindow(1024, 768, "Tutorial 01", NULL, NULL);
if (window == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Failed to open GLFW window. If you have an Intel GPU, they are not 3.3 compatible. Try the 2.1 version of the tutorials.\n");
glfwTerminate();
return -1;
}
glfwMakeContextCurrent(window); // Initialize GLEW
glewExperimental = true; // Needed in core profile
if (glewInit() != GLEW_OK) {
fprintf(stderr, "Failed to initialize GLEW\n");
return -1;
}
// Ensure we can capture the escape key being pressed below
glfwSetInputMode(window, GLFW_STICKY_KEYS, GL_TRUE);
do {
// Draw nothing, see you in tutorial 2 !
// Swap buffers
glfwSwapBuffers(window);
glfwPollEvents();
} // Check if the ESC key was pressed or the window was closed
while (glfwGetKey(window, GLFW_KEY_ESCAPE) != GLFW_PRESS &&
glfwWindowShouldClose(window) == 0);
}

Answer 1

LNK2019 unresolved external symbol __imp__glewInit#0 referenced in function _main
This tells you that it can't find the external symbol. Which is because you aren't linking glew32.lib.
As you're using MSVC / Visual Studio, try adding glew32.lib to your project directory. Then add glew32.lib under Project Properties -> Configuration Properties -> Linker -> Input -> Additional Dependencies. Since you're using MSVC you can also (as you already mentioned) add the following:
#pragma comment(lib, "glew32.lib")
If you have glew32.lib in your project directory and added the line above to your .cpp file. Then that linker error shouldn't come.
Now (given your example) just add something like glClear() and you then get something akin to:
LNK2019 unresolved external symbol __imp__glClear#4 referenced in function _main
Then that's because you also need to add opengl32.lib to your linker.
#pragma comment(lib, "opengl32.lib")
If you get a linker error like this:
LNK4272: library machine type 'X86' conflicts with target machine type 'x64'
It means that you're building for x64 but some of your libraries are built for x86. In other words you might be using the x64 version of glew32.lib, while you actually need to use the x86 version of glew32.lib.
If your code compiles but when the application is run you get something like:
The program can't start because glew32.dll is missing from your computer.
Then add the glew32.dll to your project directory.
Again version matter, so if the application crashes saying something like:
The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b)
Then like before your application might be built for x86, but the glew32.dll is the one built for x64.
Verify everything above, and it should compile and run.
Last but not least. Instead of using GLEW I highly recommend switching to GLAD instead. GLEW is old and broken and as far as I can tell not really supported anymore.
Additionally GLAD is way easier to setup and use. You go to the generator, select the version you want to target, press generate and download an implementation (.c) file and a few headers (.h). That's it. No libs to link against, no dll's to carry around or anything.
I have a x86 machine, I am not fully aware of what this means
x86 is an instruction set architecture. However x86 is more commonly used to refer to 32-bit. Whereas x64 is used to refer to 64-bit. The architecture is the same, it's just 64-bit instead of 32-bit. The 64-bit version of the x86 architecture is also called
x86-64 or AMD64.
This also means that a 64-bit CPU can execute 32-bit instructions. But a 32-bit CPU can't execute 64-bit instructions. Which is why applications usually target 32-bit computers.