I had a C/C++ Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition project that was defined to generate a DLL, and I'm having a lot of misery with "undefined symbols" which I wanted to use in another project, so I decided to see what it would give if I changed the project settings so that it would generate a static library instead.
So in the Properties window of the project I went to
Configuration Properties > General > Project Defaults > Configuration Type
and set the Configuration Type to Static Library
The target extension is .lib.
When I do a rebuild I still get a fresh dll file in my Release folder, as well as a lib, and the DLL file is much bigger than the lib file. This makes the lib file look like an "export lib" file and it looks like nothing has changed.
This still happens if I stop and restart Visual Studio.
Am I missing something or does this look like a bug to you?
In Configuration Properties - C/C++ - Runtime Library change setting to Multi-threaded (/MT) for Release configuration and to Multi-threaded Debug (/MTd) for Debug configuration.
Also, check Configuration Properties - General - General - Target extension is set to .lib.
Check settings for all configurations (Release and Debug if you use them).
Why have you changed your project type? If you need DLL, build DLL. Post exact errors received during DLL compilation. Perhaps you missed some dllexport/dllimport declspecs.
Regarding .lib: are you sure, that DLL is generated during build? Perhaps it is the output from previous (DLL) configuration? Have you tried to compile test app using this .lib? Perhaps it is valid and compiled properly?
Another matter: have you removed all dclspecs from function signatures after project type change? When building static library, none of them are applicable.
Related
I am using a VS2015 to create DLLs which will be used in a project (which will be run on another PC).
I have build the DLLs in Release version on my PC but when I start the project on another PC, I get following errors:
VCRUNTIME140D.dll is missing
MSVCP140D.dll is missing
MSVCP140D.dll is missing
What steps should I take while creating these DLLs so that these debug runtime DLLs won't be required to the run the project on any PC.
In spite of it being built in release mode, if you require "...D.dll", then there are debug builds in the mix.
This could be the result of the third party dll you have or there are DEBUG or _DEBUG defines floating around.
Most likely is that the build (of the dll or the host exe) is explicitly set to use the debug version of the runtime (/MDd). Change this in the project settings to not use the debug version of the runtime (/MD).
Open the project's Property Pages dialog box.
Expand the C/C++ folder.
Select the Code Generation property page.
Modify the Runtime Library property.
To assist in the diagnosis of which binary is responsible for the debug dependency, you can use Dependency Walker to track down the offender. It will give you a list (as a tree) of the dependencies of each file.
In general, for missing the C++ runtimes (release version) on a target machine, you should install the C++ redistributable. As of this writing, VS 2015 redistributable is available here.
In C/C++ -> Code Generation -> set Runtime Library to:
Multi-threaded Debug (/MTd)
And yes, such setting is very much needed if you want to debug a process on a remote machine. So, don't go by others saying, "test with Release build only". Obviously, you'll need Remote Tools installed.
As stated by Niall, you should use dependency walker in order to find which part of the project is causing the error, it might not be the dll in issue after all.
My bet is it's just some part of the project you forgot and built in debug mode, which of should never be used for production as debug dlls are not included in C++ redistrib installers.
I am using visual studio 2013 and I build my project under release. However when I try to execute it on another machine without visual studio but with vc_redist installed, I get the error: msvcp120d.dll is missing from the computer, which is used when a project is compiled in debug. Any way to solve this problem?
You need to change settings in Project properties
Right click on your project > Properties > C/C++ > Code Generation
and inside you have to change Runtime Library from Multi threader DLL (/MD) to Multi Threader (/MT). This way you won't need to include additional libraries with your build.
First check that all your projects are actually set to build in Release.
You do this by opening the 'Configuration Manager' from Build -> Configuration Manager...
Select Release and Win32/x64 whatever you are building and then ensure all your projects are set to Release configuration.
If they are all fine then you will need to either manually check the Project settings for each project, or you can use an application such as Depends to help find the offending EXE or DLL.
http://www.dependencywalker.com/
I just installed both vcredist_x86 and cvredist_x64 and it works.
I'm attempting to compile a release executable using vs2012 Express. However, whenever I try to run the .exe on other computers, I get a warning that I need msvcr110.dll. I could simply copy the dll over, but I'm looking for a more long term solution.
In my attempts to isolate what is causing the error, I have reverted back to a new c++ project using the default settings, except for changing the configuration to release in the configuration manager.
I've been trying to solve this on my own for over a week now without any progress, so any suggestions would be appreciated.
Link to the CRT statically. Choose "Multithreaded", and not the DLL option in the Runtime Library dropdown in the project properties.
In your project properties choose option Configuration Properties/C/C++/Code Generation/Runtime Library and pick option 'Multi-threaded (/MT)' (or 'Multi-threaded Debug (/MTd)' for your debug configuration).
For dynamically linked applications, the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 must be installed in target machines. Be sure to choose the architecture that matches your application.
Statically linking will obviously work, too, but I tend to classify this as a workaround.
We recently converted a C++ project from Visual Studio 6 to Visual Studio 8. Everything went well until we reached the compilation of a project who put all the static libraries inside one big static library. By default after the conversion between the two version of projects the project didn't do anything (no big static library was created, it only said that the project was up-to-date).
We found a working solution by adding a dummy (empty) file to the project (it had no other files before, in the Visual Studio 6 solution). Everything went well and we managed to compile the project with the new development environment (Visual Studio 8).
My question is: Is there any other way to do this, without dummy files added to the project?
Thanks in advance for your responses
You can use the method described in the answer by nobugz also with multiple configurations and different directories for debug and release input libs. Just add all input libs, debug and release, and use "exclude from build". In the debug configuration exclude all release input libs from the build, in the release configuration exclude all debug input libs.
I have created a wn32 project with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual C++ language, it uses the ws2_32.lib library and then I compiled in Release mode.
It runs very good in the same computer, but when I copy the exe file to other computer (that doesn't have installed Visual Studio), it doesn't run.
The message I see is:
This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
But, if I compile my application using DEV C++, it generates a bigger executable (738KB) compared with the Visual Studio 2008 executable (9.5 KB). However, the DEV C++ executable runs in the other computer.
I have add the library ws2_32.lib to the linker properties of my project, in the Additional Dependencies field.
How can I fix it to work with Visual Studio 2008?
My code is the following: http://www.stan.com.mx/yupi/udpserver.cpp
The problem is almost certainly that the other computer does not have version 9 of the C++ CRT installed.
The default setting for compiling against the CRT in VS2008 is to dynamically link vs. statically linking. If you want to deploy your program with a real setup project you'll need to include the CRT redistributable.
However if you want to do an XCOPY deployment follow the steps on the following page.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235291.aspx
Try installing the Visual C++ redistributables. If that doesn't work, use DependencyWalker to find out what DLLs are missing.
I agree with JaredPar. The application you build with VS2008 is using dynamic linking, whereas the DEV C++ is linking statically, hence the larger size and why one works and not the other.
However, if its a plain win32 application project you've got (and you don't want/need to distribute it with a setup), you may be able to get it to run on another machine without redistributing the CRT by getting VS2008 to link statically for you (if its just the standard lib you're missing). I don't have a copy of VS2008 to hand, so I'll describe how to do it in VS2005 and hopefully it'll translate across.
Bring up configuration properties for the project (right click the project name, then select "properties" from the menu)
Expand "Configuration Properties", then "C/C++", then click "Code Generation"
Under the "Runtime Library" item, for your particular configuration select the non-DLL version of the library i.e. for debug builds you want "Multi-threaded Debug (/MTd) and for release builds you want "Multi-threaded (/MT)"
Try and see if that works. You'll obviously get a much bigger final binary now the library is statically linked.
You may be missing an external dependency required by your program. Check the project settings to see if you are linking against MFC dynamically for example. You can also run Depends utility to check for missing dependencies.