So i'm fairly new to VS and coding and I've recently made a small snake game in a C++ console application project, which works fine but i would like to get it to work on another PC without VS. The closest i have found to answering my question were these other StackOverflow questions here and here. i have installed the vs installer projects extension to try make it a setup project and include the required dependencies but i cant work out how to do this. Does anyone have any info to guide me through my last step of this problem or am i completely on the wrong track?
If the application uses dynamic runtime (which is the default), it uses the VS DLL files. To provide them, the Visual Studio Runtime Redistributable for that particular VS version needs to be installed on the target machine (as mentioned in your second link).
So that means you need to setup the installer that way. I didn't use it, but there might be some options that the resulting setup can either contain or download and install the VS redistributable automatically.
See also here: How to install redistributable with visual studio setup? (but it is for VS 2013, there might be some changes in 2015)
Well, you don't tell us what kind of project your C++ console app is...
Using only C++, your app can be built with different versions of the CRT, like for instance:
V120 (VS-2013)
V120_XP (VS-2013 w/ XP support)
V140 (VS-2015)
V140_XP (VS-2015 w/ XP support)
Even on VS 2015, you can choose the version of the CRT you want, and use an older version, if needed.
Anyway, the target computer will need the DLLs for the correct CRT version.
Microsoft provides them. You can either ship them with your product, if you have a custom installer, or use the installer provided by Microsoft.
MSDN - Determining Which DLLs to Redistribute
For instance, using V120:
msvcp120.dll
msvcr120.dll
Your project might also use .NET.
In such a case, you also need to install the correct version in the host machine.
Related
I wonder if anybody has experience converting VS 2008 C++ solution to VS 2017/19 without switching to newer SDK and toolset. The solution is quite old, very large, uses 3-rd party libraries, so full conversion is out of the question. The goal is only to switch to better user interface.
Theoretically it is probably possible, although I successfully converted only very basic C++ MFC project.
Project settings in VS 2017 show only latest toolset. To make other toolsets to appear, I had to install VS 2010, and also add SDK 8.1 from VS installer (without VS 2010, this option is not available). Then select toolset v.90 and SDK 8.1 for each project in solution.
At this point, simple converted project works fine. A large legacy solution has a lots of issues. I resolved generic ones, but it looks like uphill battle. For example, C++ directories are physically different and some of the files are missing. It may be possible to eventually assign original VS 2008 directories to each project and/or copy missing files, but I have the impression of doing something illegal.
The question is, is it a valid procedure and still possible after latest updates.
Thanks==
I have an application written in QT. Previously I was using Visual Studio 2012 and Qt 5.3.1 after which I recently upgraded to Visual Studio 2015 and QT 5.6. I would previously provide msvcp110 and msvcr110 as part of the installation (I know that wasn't the best practice but I got away with it).
After upgrading I had to now install VC++ 2015 because of the changes with VS 2015. I don't mind the changes and currently providing redist packages to be installed.
The problem I am facing is that, I do have to provide VC++ 2012 as well and recently running the software in Windows 8.1 Pro, I was asked to provide VC++ 2013 as well (never used VS2013 for compiling). The diagnosis was from dependency walker and google. Not only that, I had to install x86 and x64 of all the 3 versions of VC++ for the software to start (wouldn't even start to be honest).
Why do I need VC++ 2012 and 2013 when I now use only Visual Studio 2015?
How do I get rid of the other redist packages? Is it some code I have written which is dependent? If yes any chance I can find out?
Why do I need to provide both the 32 and 64 bit versions when I compile strictly in the 64 bit compiler?
Any way to diagnose without dependency walker? Can there be some logging when the application refuses to start at all?
Apologies for the long post, but any light here can restore my sanity.
Thanks in advance.
You are using DLLs linked to the older runtime. You can use Dependency Walker on your development machine to track this down, shouldn't need to install any tools on a customer machine for that.
Migrate all the files shipped with your application to a version built against VC++ 2015.
You didn't provide any details that could reveal the reason.
For DLLs other than the language runtime library, you can use delay-loading and then be able to trap failure to load the library. You can't effectively delay-load msvcr*.dll though. One option would be to create a very thin EXE that uses no support DLL at all (either use pure Win32 API, or statically link the runtime) which does nothing except install an error handler and then load your main program which is now in the form of a DLL. Loading your main program DLL should be done either using delay-load linking or LoadLibrary()+GetProcAddress() -- either one will allow catching errors. This main program DLL would be free to import the runtime DLLs as usual.
I have created a c++ game with the following libraries : SDL2 and SDL2_MIXER. I want to give the game to some friends who have no programming experience to play with. Now I don't really know how to do that.
What I have tried is to use installshield limited edition with visual studio. After giving the installation program to some friends they all had a common problem-error that a dll MVCsomething was missing.
What is the simplest way to give my friends the app? Since c++ is translated to assembly do I have to compile the source again each time I change a machine?
Given the way that you've tagged your question, it is unclear if you are using Visual Studio or CodeBlocks to compile the code.
I guessing that you're compiling it in Visual Studio, and therefore they're getting an error that they don't have the appropriate MSVCRT DLLs—in other words, the C runtime library that your code depends upon, having been compiled with Microsoft's compiler. Point them to download the version of the Visual C++ Redistributable matching the version of Visual Studio that you're using on your development computer. For example, if you have VS 2015, they'll need to install Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015.
Alternatively, you can bundle the required redistributable into your installer to make sure that it gets installed automatically, if it isn't already. In InstallShield, I believe that's done by marking the VC++ Redistributable as a "requirement". Make sure that it's set as a prerequisite. Although, judging from the answer to this question, it may be that InstallShield LE doesn't support this. If that's the case, my advice would be to ditch InstallShield altogether and use something like Inno Setup to build an installer. There is a moderate learning curve, but it is useful knowledge. That being said, I can't believe Microsoft would ship a mechanism for creating a setup program with Visual Studio that didn't support automated installation of the CRT. I have not kept up with what Visual Studio supports nowadays with respect to setup wizards.
Since c++ is translated to assembly do I have to compile the source again each time I change a machine?
No, no. Assuming that your friends are all running Windows (and not, say, Linux) and have x86-based machines (which they do if they're running Windows), your code will work fine. The only hitch would be if you are compiling 64-bit code that runs on your machine, but they only have 32-bit machines. Then you'll need to have a 32-bit and 64-bit version. (Or a single 32-bit version, which will run on both.)
How to remove msvc dlls (example: msvcr100.dll) dependency to run qt appliation?
I've developed a qt application which runs just fine in dveloper machine but unable to run on any other machine gives error message "program can't start because MSVCR100.dll is missing from your computer". I can solve this error by copying that file in the application folder but I dont want to copy, instead I want to link statically or some other way to remove that dependency.
Thanks in advance
The issue is that you are probably trying to run an application on a machine which has a different Visual Studio (MSVC) version installed than the version that was used for building your application itself.
Generally, the correct solution is to install the corresponding Visual Studio redistributable package on the target machine. It is not a "workaround" or "hack" because if you wish to use an application built with different runtime libraries, etc, then it is expected. Here you can read a bit more about it:
Redistributing Visual C++ Files
Yes, it is a bit unfortunate, and apparently MS has not managed to make it the most ideal, but after all, it is simple enough to circumvent. Note that the target machine would not only have issues with your application, but in general with any distributed in a similar fashion.
The other way to solve the issue is to build the application with the same environment that is installed on the target machine, but this can easily go haywire if you need to supply the application to several machines with versatile setup. Now, I would say this is the "hackish" approach.
You will need to grab the redistributable for this particular problem from here:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64)
Even if you went down for statically hacking this around somehow, you would need to deal with nasty consequences when using your application with DLLs and static libraries, etc.
As far as I know, you can't link statically to Visual Studio Redistributable. Any application built with Visual Studio Compiler needs the corresponding msvcXXX.dll to run. Installers containing all dll for each specific version of MSVC are available here: http://search.microsoft.com/en-us/DownloadResults.aspx?q=redistributable
If you want avoid errors for your users when you distribute your application, you have some solution. A commonly used is to install the right redistributable package before installing your application on the user machine. Often used tools (NSIS, Inno Setup, etc.) have options to run other executable in the process. And each Microsoft redist package can be run silently (without any window display to user).
Note: This problem is absolutely not related to qt. It comes directly from the compiler you choose.
I'm coming from a Linux background, but I'd like to provide a version of my software on Windows. For users to run my program, they will need the Visual C++ redistributable. I would like to provide it for them as part of the package.
My worry is that there, in the future, will be an SP2 of the Visual Studio 2008 Redistributable. If I provide them SP1, or ask them to install it themselves, will it clobber later versions of the dll's that may be required by future tools?
Is there any instruction to give users to make sure they do not do this?
I'd certainly not want to screw up someone's machine or other applications by giving them incorrect instructions.
Aside from the redistributable exe, I was going to provide my tool as a zip file which they can extract into any directory they please, so I was not planning on providing an installer.
With VS 2008 the runtimes are manifested and will install side-by-side. So if your application is linked to SP1's runtime, it will run only with the SP1 runtime (unless a manifest explicitly indicates that the Sp1 version should be overridden).
So you're protected from that type of DLL hell, in exchange for another (the user must have the SP1 redistributable installed).
Why don't you statically link and avoid this problem altogether?
The VC++ redistributables are meant to be installed side-by-side and can coexist peacefully.
Here's a page from the MSDN docs about the VC++ redistributables. That whole Deployment section of MSDN should be instructive.
As people said, they're installed side-by-side. If you use Visual Studio's installer project type, there's an option for including the CRT redistributable, and it will set it up properly for you to be installed and uninstalled with your application.
In particular, they're installed to the \Windows\WinSxS directory.
To get an intuition for how side-by-side works, do
cd %systemroot%\winsxs
dir /S msvc*.dll
And you will see all the versions people have put on your machine.