i'm developing a C++ simulation (OpenGL) on top of VS2008 enviroment. My current operating system is Windows Vista. The trouble is that when trying to execute the application on a Windows XP machine, my application crashes because incompatibilities beteween DLL's (namely, msvcrt.dll function entry points ) ... Has anyone experienced such problem?
I seriously doubt that's the real reason it crashes. You probably just didn't deploy the CRT libraries to the target machine. Or deployed the debug build. If this is a single EXE with no DLL dependencies then solve your problem by linking the static version of the CRT. Right-click the project in Solution Explorer, Properties, C/C++, Code Generation, Runtime libraries, select /MTd. Repeat for the Release configuration, now choosing /MT.
search for 'C redistributables' on MSDN. YOu will see a list of all the run time libs you need, make sure you get the debug / non debug and the unicode / ansi choices correct
Open the Visual Studio Command Prompt.
Type "depends.exe" and press enter.
Open the deployable EXE/DLL from depends.
Write down the list of DLL's needed to run your application.
Verify that those DLL's are either deployed with your targeted OS version or that you deploy them yourself.
Related
I created a client server application in C++ using Visual Studio.
Now I want to run the client EXE file on another computer (which doesn't have Visual Studio installed),
but when I try run the EXE file, it gives the following error message:
This application has failed to start because the application
configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this
problem.
How can I run the EXE file without installing anything on the computer?
Applications built with Visual Studio depend on Visual C++ Redistibutable (VCRedist). When the program is being linked dynamically, then your binaries will need
MSVCR**.dll (Microsoft C Runtime Library).
On MSDN, there is a nice article called Redistributing Visual C++ Files (for Visual Studio 2008), that states that there are Potential run-time errors in case that required Visual C++ library is not installed:
you may get one of the following error messages depending on the version of Windows on which you try to run your application:
The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135).
This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling application may fix this problem.
The system cannot execute the specified program.
Basically you have two options:
The simplest possible solution is to change the dynamic linking of runtime libraries to static linking. Go to project properties and under C/C++ → Code Generation you will find Runtime Library option. You need to change it from Multi-threaded DLL (/MD) to Multi-threaded (/MT).
Another possible solution is to make sure that the right version of Microsoft VC++ Redistributable Package is installed on the target machine.
But your application might depend on other DLL files as well. In case you want to find out what are the dependencies of your program, there is a great utility called Dependency Walker that will help you in this and many other situations :)
Background:
C++ applications need run-time assemblies (DLL files) to run in any Windows computer.
Normally these run-time assemblies are located at C:\Windows\Winsxs directory.
All the Windows operating systems by default comes with several run time assemblies.
But if your application is developed in a newer version of the run-time assembly environment, the target computer also needs the same version of the run time to exist there.
When you're installing Visual Studio, most newer versions of the run-time assemblies comes to your computer.
Solution:
Finally by anyway the target computer should have the exact run time assemblies. There are a few ways to do this (for more details search each in Google).
Statically link run-time assemblies with your application (troublesome for large application).
Install the C++ redistribution environment on the target computer (the easiest way).
Creating a setup project to deploy the run-time on the target computer when installing the application (not bad).
For deploying run-time assemblies as private assemblies (professional), see here for more details
Conditions:
You must not use .NET framework in your application.
You must not use the common language run-time support for your application
I deployed my program in release instead of debug, and the EXE file now works on the other computer.
I haven't seen that specific error before. Usually it's an error around a missing DLL (Windows redistributable). Assuming there isn't actually a problem with the configuration, you have two choices:
Change the compile mode from Multithreaded DLL to Multithreaded. This can be done from the C++ section of project properties under code generation. In multithreaded mode your binary will be statically linked against the Windows redistributable. This is probably what you want.
Install the Windows redistributable on the target machine. This probably isn't OK, because you state that you don't want to install anything on the target machine.
A warning about option 1: Different versions of Windows have different versions of the redistributable. It's possible to encounter a highly specialized environment in which a statically linked program will not behave as expected.
It look like you're missing some DLL files. Be sure to copy appropriate DLL files along with EXE file.
I am running Visual Studio 2019 and I found a very helpful configuration property to address the problem of moving a simple application to another computer without an installation package.
Open the project Property Pages.
Choose which configurations this change should apply to, I used “All Configurations”.
In the left-hand window click to expand the top node called “Configuration Properties”.
Click on "Advanced". In the right-hand window look for the property called “Copy C++ Runtime to OutDir” and set that to “yes”.
Click OK to close the Properties window.
Rebuild your project. All the necessary dlls will be copied to the project’s output directory. Copy your exe and all dlls to another computer. The exe should find everything it needs to run.
When I try to open released .exe file (which I wrote in Visual Studio 2008) in VMWare Workstation 6.5 with Windows Server 2008 32bit OS, got "The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect." error all time even if the code is;
#include <stdio.h>
int main ()
{
printf ("HELLO\n");
return 0;
}
Is anyone faced that king of problem or does know how to cope with it?
You probably forgot to deploy the runtime support DLLs or copied the Debug build of your program. For a small program like this without DLLs that export C++ classes or pointers it is better to link the static version of the CRT. Project + Properties, C/C++, Code Generation, /MTd. Repeat for the Release configuration, now choose /MT.
It has nothing to do with VMWare -- it has to do with not having the correct side-by-side assemblies for the C runtime installed. You need to know which ones you require, and then install the runtime. You can also control it with a manifest.
There is some info here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-by-side_assembly
One easy way (for C/C++ programs) to get around this is to change to linking to the C-runtime statically. Go to your project properties, then Code Generation, and choose static linking for the C Runtime. Then you won't have a dependency on the runtime dlls. All libraries you might be using need to be linked this way for it to work.
I generally get this error if the C/C++ runtime that the program was built with was not installed in the VM. You can download the CRT for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 at Microsoft's website. Make sure to download the correct version of the CRT based on the versions of Visual Studio used to build the app.
There's an app that I use on an XP netbook for tuning a car. It was working just fine. Then I needed to make a simple modification (output to STDOUT instead of to file) so I got the source from the author.
My netbook doesn't have the space for a compiler. I have Visual Studio C++ 2008 on a Windows 7 desktop. I made the adjustments, compiled and tested on the desktop and it worked perfecty. So then I copied the executable to the netbook and it won't run
"This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem"
Original (precompiled) exe works fine. To rule out my changes, I compiled the source without the mods and it still didn't work. The executable works fine on the 7 machine as well as another Win Vista machine I tried.
So its obviously something with the XP machine and the way the executable is compiled. I really have no idea how this stuff works so I don't know what to try.
Couple of ideas:
As Keith said above this is DLL/manifest issue.
Get Visual Studio 2008 redistributable (for matching application platform) and install it on the netbook.
If this does not help: Use Dependency Walker to find out what other DLLs you are missing.
Its because a dependency / DLL compiled into your application doesn't exist on the platform you are running on.
Open windows event viewer and view the application log. There will be an entry for the error and the name of the DLL which is missing. Copy / Install that DLL on your target platform.
I would guess your vc runtime has changed with visual studio 2008 and you need to copy the latest version to your target platform. If you dont know where to get the dependency DLL, post the name here and we can see what we can do about it.
You can check your project settings and make sure to use a statically linked runtime instead of a DLL.
Project Settings, C/C++ -> Code Generation. Make sure you're using a runtime library that isn't a DLL. (So Multi-threaded Debug instead of Multi-threaded Debug DLL for example).
I've got a minimal app I just created, using VS 2008 SP1 on Vista x64. Its a Console app, created with the wizard, no MFC or anything, I'm building it in 64bit.
When I run the debug exe, on my development box, by pressing F5 in Visual Studio 2008, I get this error:
TestApp.exe - Unable To Locate Component
This application has failed to start because MSVCR90.dll was not found.
Re-installing the application may fix this problem.
OK
I don't get this error when I run the release exe, it works as expected.
This problem started when I added some include dependencies on iostream and fstream and started calling some winsock API calls.
Any suggestions?
UPDATE: I copied msvcr90.dll (not msvcrd90.dll) into the correct folder, and now I get a different error:
Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Runtime Error!
Program: [snip]...
R6034
An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.
OK
Alex
You application is using the DLL CRT runtime. The machine you want to run it on requires the installation of the debug CRT runtime dll's (which is a pain in the ass...). I think the better solution is to change the compile options to use the static linked CRT runtime (that means the runtime is linked into your application instead of using the DLL version).
In visual studio go into the Properites for your project then select the Configuration Properties / C++ / Code Generation and change the "Runtime Library" from "multi-threaded debug dll" to "multi-threaded debug".
You may like to do the same for the release build as well because some versions of the OS will not come with the V9 release CRT libraries pre-installed, or you can include the v9 release crt dll as part of your install.
How are you running the release exe (Ctrl+F5 in the IDE)? You should set the Runtime Library to the same thing you are setting the release exe.
Are you linking your debug mode program to a release mode library? You mention this error in a comment:
Error 13 error LNK2005: memmove already defined in LIBCMTD.lib(memcpy.obj) MSVCRT.lib DataEngineSocketsAPI
What that looks like to me is you have a library named DataEngineSocketsAPI that links to MSVCRT.lib, which defines memmove(). But, your exe links to libcmtd.lib, which also defines a different (debug mode) version of memmove().
Third-party (e.g. your own) libraries must have debug and release versions too, and you must use the one appropriate to the mode you're building your exe for.
The Debug exe is linked to the headers for the debug runtime library, MSVCR90D.dll. You need to make sure that dll is in the path. Static linking is, as Shane says, a viable option, but the typical solution is to deploy the dependant dlls with the exe. Statically linking everything leads to bloated exes and lots of duplicated copies of runtime libraries.
Seeing your edit, the problem is certainly the msvcr90d.dll, but it needs to be deployed correctly in the WinSXS folder. You might be able to re-install the service pack for VS 2008 and get it to redeploy.
Thanks again for all the help with this. It turns out I'd just made a mistake and not noticed that a library I was using was statically linked against a different version of the MSVC runtime. That was causing on end of problems.
See this link
http://www.insidercoding.com/post/2008/07/21/Debugging-issues-with-MSVCR90DLL.aspx
You need (for debug mode only) to ignore on the link input tab MSVCRT; MSVCR90; as you want to be using the debug version of the CRT.
I can confirm this problem: letting Visual Studio 2008
create the project (Visual C++/Win32 Console Application)
and pressing F5 will display that error.
There is a simple solution:
Turn incremental linking off. HOWTO: open properties page
for the project. Set Configuration
Properties/Linker/General/Enable Incremental Linking to "No
(INCREMENTAL:NO)".
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