I have a C++ application only taking use of the basic Win32 API (I can remove that too if neccessary) and the C++ STL. I'm using MSVC and want it to be really standalone. I have already tried several options (including using the "Multithreaded" option instead of "Multithreaded DLL").
Yet: It misses several MSVC runtime DLLs on many computers including those in my school.
How can I create a C++ application able to run on Windows XP (and lower/higher if possible) without needing any specific DLL versions only avaiable with Service Packs and runtime-DLLs installed?
Do I have to switch to G++?
My requirements aren't that big.. Just a small executable, 35KB in size, containing some loops here and some ifs there.
Well, you already found the option you need to change. Right-click the project in the Solution Explorer window, Properties, C/C++, Code Generation, Runtime Library = /MTd. The resulting EXE only has a dependency on kernel32.dll, Windows.
Don't forget to also do this for the Release build configuration. Now choose /MT.
If you use static linking for all libraries you use, you should not need any DLLs. Are you sure you're not using MFC or ATL DLLs or something? Setting the runtime library to 'multithreaded' instead of 'multithreaded DLL' should do the trick for the CRT and remove any dependency on the MSVCRT DLLs. There should be a similar setting in general properties, like "use standard windows headers".
If you're using Visual Studio 2010, the CRT requires Windows XP SP2 or newer (so RTM or SP1 won't work). If you need to target prior to XP SP2, you probably need to go back down to Visual Studio 2008.
Related
My application when opened in others computer will give an error missing msvcr"something".dll, I found out that to fix this they need to install the following:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784
Which is Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013.
I would like to compile the program with the dlls in the executable already, is such thing possible?
If not possible, where can I get all the dlls to put in the compiled project folder?
Try to set /MT for Release and /MTd for Debug in Project Settings->C/C++->Code Generation. This will make your program not dependent on Visual Studio libraries. But beware that all the libraries/ projects you will link with should also have the same option there, otherwise you'll get nasty linker errors.
You may also wish to select v120_xp in General->Platform Toolset for your program to be able to run on Windows XP
Because a lot of Programms use the functionality of these dll's they are dynamically linked.
So your filesize stays small and in case of fixes within the dll you dont have to recompile your program.
If you dont want this behaviour you can set in the projectsettings the dll's to "static linked" (/MT).
That way they will be compiled into your executable
Here is a relevant MSDN-article
Which is Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013.
For Visual Studio 2013, you need:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784
If you were building with Visual Studio 2012, then you would need:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30679
If you were building with Visual Studio 2012, then you would need:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5555 (x86)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=14632 (x64)
The point is, you are probably going to need a runtime if you are writing portable C/C++ code by using functions like new, malloc, delete, free, etc.
You might be able to avoid the code if you use the Win32 API. For example, HeapAlloc and HeapFree, etc. Installers often use the Win32 API, and that's one of the reasons they usually don't need a runtime installed prior to running them.
I would like to compile the program with the DLLs in the executable already, is such thing possible?
Yes, its possible. Its called Static Linking (as opposed to Dynamic Linking).
But you will probably still need a runtime.
If not possible, where can I get all the DLLs to put in the compiled project folder?
Retired Ninja gave you this answer: Microsoft Visual Studio ~ C/C++ Runtime Library ~ Static/dynamic linking.
My application when opened in others computer will give an error missing msvcr "something".dll" ...
Another possible solution is to build your project with Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008. The runtime used by VS2005 and VS2005 are usually available on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8. So the computer may already have them.
But usually you just build your installer to carry around what you need. I use Inno Setup because it allows you to include both x86 and x64 components side-by-side. At install time, you just install the right components based on architecture (x86 vs x64), including the correct runtime. (At the time I choose Inno, Wix did not allow mixing architectures and I wanted a unified installer).
Is it possible to develop in C/C++ for windows and not to link against the msvcr100.dll?
I understand that this is the standard c library for windows, but I was wondering how all the programs on my computer could run if I hadn't Visual Studio or the Redistributable package installed?
Right-click your project in the Solution Explorer window, Properties, C/C++, Code Generation, Runtime Library setting. Change it to /MTd. Repeat for the Release configuration, pick /MT
You will now link the static version of the CRT, any functions you use get directly linked into your EXE instead of getting them from msvcr100.dll at runtime. So you no longer have the requirement to deploy the DLL along with your program.
Avoid using this option if you create your own DLLs. It then gets to be important that those DLLs and the EXE use the exact same CRT so they'll all share the same CRT state and the same heap. Because if they don't then you'll have nasty problems with passing C++ objects or pointers that need to be released from one chunk of code to another. An AccessViolation if you are lucky, a memory leak if you are not.
If you restrict your project to use only C programming language/library, then you can
only link against MSVCRT.lib which is completely baked in any Windows version since Windows XP SP3.
It means, that rather than dependency on MSVCR100.DLL (or any other Visual Studio DLL), you can only link against the standard C functions in MSVCRT. By the way, this technique is used in CoApp project developed under umbrella of Microsoft, so I'd consider it as a good pratice in such cases as yours.
Simply, download Windows DDK and link only against $(DDKInstallPath)lib\Crt\$(DDKPlatform)\msvcrt.lib
On Windows, I doubt it's possible to create a non-trivial program that doesn't use the CRT in some way.
It is possile to use the CRT without linking to msvcrXXX.dll -- simply link to the static libs instead. But to address your question:
how all the programs on my computer could run if I hadn't Visual
Studio or the Redistributable package installed?
If the programs on your PC were linked to msvcrtxxx.dll, then they couldn't. Sinmply, the redist that a particular program needed was already installed on your PC before you even came along, probably. Or at least, the parts of the redist needed by the program.
I need to modify the C runtime which ships with VS2010 because the 2010 CRT relies on functions released in Windows XP SP2, and I need to be able to deploy to Windows 2000.
Specifically, I need to remove any and all calls to EncodePointer and DecodePointer.
The source for the C runtime is included in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\crt\src, so it seems like it should be possible to build the runtime after slightly modifying the source.
Oh, I don't need to be able to build the dynamic versions of the runtime -- static versions only. (I cannot rely on the user installing the CRT on their system either).
With VS2008 and earlier, there was a tutorial in MSDN describing how to build the CRT, but I can't seem to find it for 2010.
Is such a thing possible?
Here's an MSDN link. It looks like you have to do it yourself in VS2010.
You can use the following compiler and linker options to rebuild the MFC, CRT, and ATL libraries. Starting in Visual C++ 2010, scripts for rebuilding these libraries are no longer shipped.
If it is a option, I would consider using the VC++ 2008 toolset within VS2010 instead of building a custom CRT. The procedure is explained here.
"Oh, I don't need to be able to build the dynamic versions of the runtime -- static versions only."
Since you only need static linking, you can try this trick to provide implementations of EncodePointer and DecodePointer.
My C(++) program, written and compiled using Visual C(++)/Visual Studio, runs fine on my own machine, but refuses to run on another machine. The error message I get is "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."
If you write a C++ program, it links dynamically to the C Runtime Library, or CRT for short. This library contains your printf, your malloc, your strtok, etcetera. The library is contained in the file called MSVCR80.DLL. This file is not by default installed on a Windows system, hence the application cannot run.
The solution? Either install the DLL on the target machine through VCREDIST.EXE (the Visual C++ Redistributable Package), or link to the CRT statically (plug the actual code for the used functions straight into your EXE).
Distributing and installing VCREDIST along with a simple application is a pain in the arse, so I went for the second option: static linking. It's really easy: go to your project's properties, unfold C/C++, click Code Generation, and set the Runtime Library to one of the non-DLL options. That's all there is to it.
The problem here is a missing DLL dependency, such as the CRT (C Runtime Library). A good tool for diagnosing this sort of problem is Dependency Walker (depends.exe), which you can find here:
http://www.dependencywalker.com/
You would run this program on the computer that generates the error message you posted, and use it to open the exe that's generating this error. Dependency Walker will quickly and graphically indicate any DLLs that are required but not available on the machine.
Chances are high that you miss the runtime libraries of Visual Studio (CRT amongst others), you can either get rid of those dependencies (link statically) or install the VC redist packages on the target computer.
Depending on the Visual C++ version you use, you have to install different packages :
Visual C++ 2005
Visual C++ 2005 SP1
Visual C++ 2008
Warning : those packages only contain release versions of the libraries, if you want to be able to distribute debug builds of your application you'll have to take care of the required DLL yourself.
It is much the simplest to link to the runtime statically.
c++ -> Code Generation -> Runtime Library and select "multi-threaded /MT"
However, this does make your executable a couple hundred KByte larger. This might be a problem if you are installing a large number of small programs, since each will be burdened by its very own copy of the runtime. The answer is to create an installer.
New project -> "setup and deployment" -> "setup project"
Load the output from your application projects ( defined using the DLL version of the runtime ) into the installer project and build it. The dependency on the runtime DLL will be noticed, included in the installer package, and neatly and unobtrusively installed in the correct place on the target machine.
The correct VC Redist package for you is part of your Visual Studio installation. For VC 8, you can find it here:
\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\BootStrapper\Packages\vcredist_x86
POSSIBLE SOLUTION........
EDIT: (removed most of my post)
Long story short, I was having similar problems, getting the "Application Configuration Incorrect" messages, etc etc.
Depends.exe was only finding ieshims.dll and wer.dll as possible issues, but this is not the problem.
I ended up using the Multithreaded (/mt) compile option.
What HAS worked though, as a workable solution, is making an installer with InstallShield.
I've selected several merge modules in installshield builder and this seems to have fixed my problem. The modules selected were:
VC++ 9.0 CRT, VC++ 9.0 DEBUG CRT, and the CRT WinSXS MSM merge module.
I'm pretty sure its the WinSXS merge module that has fixed it.
DEBUG CRT: I noticed somewhere that (no matter how hard I tried, and obviously failed thus far), my Release version still depended on the DEBUG CRT. If this is still the case, the InstallShield merge module has now placed the DEBUG CRT folder in my WinSXS folder :) Being somewhat of a novice with VC++ I assume that this would normally be used to distribute debug versions of your programs to other people. To test if this is what fixed my problem I removed the DEBUG CRT folder from the WinSXS folder and the application still worked. (Unless something is still running in the background etc etc - I'm not that into it)
Anyway, this has got things working for me on an XP SP3 fully updated machine, and also on a VMWare XP SP3 machine with the bare bones (.net 3.5 and VC++ 2008 RTM basically) - and also on a mate's XP machine where it previously wasn't working.
So give these things a try, you might have some luck.
First thing you must use
#define _BIND_TO_CURRENT_VCLIBS_VERSION 1
or add _BIND_TO_CURRENT_VCLIBS_VERSION=1 to the preprocessor directives.
The problem is related to binding and the manifest types, you can find more http://www.nuonsoft.com/blog/2008/10/29/binding-to-the-most-recent-visual-studio-libraries/
By doing this your application will run with a larger range of runtime libraries versions.
Often times this error is the result of attempting to run the debug version of an application that uses .NET. Since the .NET redistributable package doesn't include the debug versions of the dlls that are installed with Visual Studio, your application will often get this error when running it on any other machine that doesn't have Visual Studio installed. If you haven't already, try building a release version of your application and see if that works.
Note also - that if you change to static runtime, you will have to do the same for MFC if your app uses MFC. Those settings are in properties->Configuration/General
I ran into this problem and was able to fix it very simply.
Visual studio gives you the option (on by default) to build a manifest for each build.
The manifest was put in the release folder, but it was a different release folder than the exe.
Even when using the setup utilities it was not packaged.
You should look for a file names something like myprogram.exe.indermediate.manifest
If this is in the same folder as the exe (and you have all the dlls) it should run
After compiling a simple C++ project using Visual Studio 2008 on vista, everything runs fine on the original vista machine and other vista computers. However, moving it over to an XP box results in an error message: "The application failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect".
What do I have to do so my compiled EXE works on XP and Vista? I had this same problem a few months ago, and just fiddling with some settings on the project fixed it, but I don't remember which ones I changed.
You need to install the Visual Studios 2008 runtime on the target computer:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&displaylang=en
Alternatively, you could also link the run time statically, in the project properties window go to:
c++ -> Code Generation -> Runtime
Library and select "multi-threaded
/MT"
You need to install the runtime redistributable files onto the machine you are trying to run the app on.
The redistributable for 2008 is here.
The redistributable for 2005 is here.
They can be installed side-by-side, in case you need both.
You probably need to distribute the VC runtime with your application. There are a variety of ways to do this. This article from the Microsoft Visual C++ Team best explains the different ways to distribute these dependencies if you are using Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.
As stated in the article, though you can download the Redistributable installer package and simply launch that on the client machine, that is almost always not the optimal option. There are usually better ways to include the required DLLs such as including the merge module if you are distributing via Windows Setup or App-Local copy if you just want to distribute a zipped folder.
Another option is to statically link against the runtime libraries, instead of distributing them with your application. This option is only suitable for standalone EXEs that do not load other DLLs. You also cannot do this with DLLs that are loaded by other applications.
It is much the simplest to link to the runtime statically.
c++ -> Code Generation -> Runtime Library and select "multi-threaded /MT"
However, this does make your executable a couple hundred KByte larger. This might be a problem if you are installing a large number of small programs, since each will be burdened by its very own copy of the runtime. The answer is to create an installer.
New project -> "setup and deployment" -> "setup project"
Load the output from your application projects ( defined using the DLL version of the runtime ) into the installer project and build it. The dependency on the runtime DLL will be noticed, included in the installer package, and neatly and unobtrusively installed in the correct place on the target machine.
Visual studio 2005 actually has two
The one for the original release
and the one for SP1