I am trying to build a few different 32-bit C++ applications with Visual Studio 2015 that use CEF. To use CEF, I am currently acquiring the CEF prebuilts from Spotify. The dll wrapper for CEF is built using Visual Studio 2015 with some modifications to its CMake files to force it to build with MD and MDd mode regardless of other settings. This was sufficient to make these C++ applications run on some machines. Any machine on which Visual Studio 2015 is installed on before anything else they can run on, however some machines seem to exist in a state such that the program will produce an error on starting when lacking the MSVC 2015 runtime (as expected), but when adding the MSVC 2015 runtime the program simply crashes; however, it only crashes after CEF is used. These programs work fine when they don't link to libcef.dll and don't include the browser functionality.
Upon investigating, I found that libcef.dll, as built by spotify, links to MSVCP110_WIN.DLL, which is from the Visual C++ 2012 Redistributable package. Naturally, the application I am building links to MSVCP140.DLL, which is from the Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable package. This means that the application ultimately links to two runtimes simultaneously. I do not know if this is an issue, but so far it seems to be my best lead. Installing the Visual C++ 2012 Redistributable does not change the outcome and it continues to crash when CEF is used.
This issue has been witnessed on both Windows 7 and Windows 10 and the application works without CEF on both of those operating systems as well, so the operating system is not likely to be the cause of the failure on these systems specifically.
Has anyone else encountered this issue and does anyone know a workaround? Also, does anybody know if it is okay to mix these two runtimes and what the limitations are? It seems that the installation history of a given machine affects the success of running the application, so any hints into what combination of things leads to this failure would be helpful as well.
You have some options:
Use the lastest version of VS that will allow a selection of Platform Toolset that matches libdef.dll. For example, VS2013 might allow the selection of the 2012 CRT.
Or convince Spotify to rebuild libcef.dll such that it matches your version of CRT
Or convince Spotify to not release libraries that depend on the CRT (yes that's probably a bit of work).
Or make a small app built against the older CRT, this app can then successfully use libcef.dll. Then you get to use any IPC technique so that your main VS2015 app can talk to this wrapper. Running out-of-process is one way to segregate the unruly third party libraries.
EDIT:
This is open source? Well good news, you can fix this yourself, built the CEF against your favorite version of VS.
I have spent an incredible amount of time getting our product to run properly on customers' machines after we moved to Visual Studio 2015, and I still have one problem left to solve. The problem is that I can't get any of the C++ 2015 redistributables installers to work on 32-bit Windows 7 when it hasn't been patched (Windows Update).
The full story:
We upgraded all projects in the solution from VS 2013 to VS2015 and .NET 4.5.2, which also forced us to upgrade to "Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable (x86/64) - 14.0.23506/23026)". We've done this kind of upgrade many times before, from VS2010 and up, and it never failed before.
23506 (for short) are the DLLs that accompany VS2015. We always found it easier to just XCOPY the DLLs into our installation folder. For some reason that doesn't work with the DLLs from VS2015 (23506). The program can't find them even when placed in the same folder as the executables. Why not?
Then I ran vcredist_xXX.exe that accompany VS2015, and the program runs fine.
But I want to XCOPY, so I discovered the download of 23026 from Microsoft, but there are no DLLs in there - only vc_redist.xXX.exe. Still, I copied the DLLs from somewhere in Windows - the paths to each DLL is listed in the registry. By the way, there are two extra DLLs installed that are not present in the folders in VS2015. "mfc140.dll" and "mfcm140.dll". Why?
But XCOPYing 23026 didn't work either, not even with the two extra DLLs. Running vc_redist.xXX.exe from 23026 worked fine.
Ok, problem solved, I thought. Using vc_redist.xXX.exe instead of XCOPYing. But no.
The final problem is that vc_redist.x86.exe (from 23026) and vcredist_x86.exe (from 23506) both fail when run on a 32-bit Windows 7 machine that hasn't been patched (Windows Update) at all after installation. For reasons I won't go into, that's the kind of machines we have to install our product on - unpatched 32-bit Windows 7 - no way around it. (The problem maybe exists on 64-bit unpatched Windows also, but I haven't got the time to find out.)
How do I get around this?
I am trying to link the C++ runtime statically and drop the DLLs alltogether, but it seems impossible when you have native C++ with C++ wrappers in a .NET project. This issue has already been reported by others, so no need to go into it here.
I have tried searching for DLLs to download, or a way to extract DLLs from the installer. Anyway, as mentioned above, I already tried just copying them from somewhere below C:\Windows. Doesn't work, so I doubt I can get some DLLs that will work. But again, why? If somebody can help me figure out this, it could be the perfect solution for our problem.
I have been thinking about finding the exact Windows patch(es) needed to get that installer - vc_redist.x86.exe - to work on those crappy machines. If it's just one or a handful of KBs that doesn't destabilize these machines, that would perhaps be acceptable.
A possibility that definitely should work is to downgrade the C++ projects to VS2013, which doesn't have this problem. I am really fed up of us always having to keep two versions of Visual Studio on our developer machines as a workaround for some silly problem, but if there's no other way, then so be it, even in 2016.
Found a quick and simple workaround. Turns out we only need to change the setting "Platform Toolset" to "Visual Studio 2013 (v120)" in all the C++ projects, in order to build with the good old DLLs that still work with XCOPY deployment. I was under the impression this setting would not go together with .NET 4.5.2, which we need, but it does. VS2013 will have to be installed along with VS2015, but we can live with that.
As stated, this is a workaround. It doesn't solve the actual problem stated in the title. But since I actually asked for a way around the problem, I'll close the issue with this answer.
As for the actual problem, if anyone is interested: I found some blog entries on the Visual C++ Team Blog - "Introducing the Universal CRT" and "The Great C Runtime (CRT) Refactoring". Where that leads, I'm not sure.
I was able to get this resolved on my local PC by following the updated step 6 on that article: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2015/03/03/introducing-the-universal-crt/
Once you copy the 20 or so DLLS folder it still didn't work for me, I had to grab the ucrtbase.dll and ucrtbased.dll along with all the usual 140 (mfc, mfcm,vcruntime, msvcp) from my SysWOW64 folder and finally i'm able to launch this on a windows 7 pc without requiring to install any patches!
I recently acquired XMLSpy 2013 and was naturally excited to see there was a Visual Studio integration package. I'm running VS 2012, but nowhere on Altova's download page does it mention compatibility requirements/limitations.
So I followed the steps on the Altova download site (basically just run the package and you're done). Nothing changed in VS. So I decided to download the 1326 page PDF manual for XMLSpy to see if there was some extra help in there:
http://www.altova.com/documents/XMLSpyPro.pdf
On page 490, it mentions going into your VS/Common7/IDE directory and running devenv.exe /setup which I did. After that, again, nothing changed.
Has anyone had any success with getting this integration package to work? I can find almost no information by searching the web.
I actually created a support ticket with Altova for the issue as well, but thought I'd try here for some first hand experiences.
Whelp, Altova support responded to my ticket. The answer is, since Visual Studio is a 32-bit only application, XMLSpy integration will not work when running the 64-bit version of XMLSpy/XMLSpy integration package.
This is despite the fact that both a 64-bit version of XMLSpy AND a 64-bit version of the Visual Studio Integration package exist side-by-side on the download page (as of writing this answer). I have a feeling that it might only exist for the Eclipse integration.
http://www.altova.com/download/xmlspy.html
Once I installed the 32-bit versions of XMLSpy/Integration package, it all worked as promised. I hope this helps someone in the future at least.
Is it possible to link against VC6's MSVCRT.DLL in VC++10.0?
By default it seems to be linking with MSVCR100.DLL, but I don't want to redistribute yet another DLL (MSVCRT.DLL is already available in every OS that I support).
==EDIT==
To clarify: my application is a pure C application that makes WinAPI calls. I do understand that doing C++ will require the C++ runtime, which is not bundled in Windows by default (and most probably has to match the compiler anyway). My question is about pure C usage, and only the CRT functions that exist in the earliest version of Windows that I'm targeting.
(you can find an executive summary, or TL;DR, at the bottom)
Important: This answer refers to official Microsoft toolchains only, not to something like the MinGW toolchain (GCC-based) which is also known to link against msvcrt.dll. But I doubt Microsoft would be inclined to support that toolchain anyway ;)
Short answer: no!
Don't even try using Visual C++ 2010 for the task.
There's an official and supported method: use a standalone WDK, if you need your application to link against msvcrt.dll!
You should never attempt to use a compiler toolchain that doesn't match the CRT headers and libs. Use the toolchains as Microsoft intended, not a patchwork you create. Don't mix and match. Use what's handed to you by Microsoft. But use that (and don't be afraid by the FUD).
The newest WDK which you can use to link against msvcrt.dll (7600.16385.1) uses cl.exe version 15.00.30729.207. This corresponds roughly to the compiler that comes with Visual C++ 2008! Later WDKs will link against the CRT of the Visual C++ version they require.
The msvcrt.dll you'll find on, say Windows XP or Windows 7 is not the original DLL which was included with Visual C++ 6.0 (even the most updated version of VC6).
This has also been correctly stated in other answers. No surprises there.
However, the msvcrt.dll which you will find on modern systems will, contrary to what other answers suggest, allow programs that linked against the original VC6 CRT to continue to work. Even today. It's a contract. And the promotion of msvcrt.dll to a system DLL further validated that contract.
A little historical background
The toolchains used by Microsoft internally were somewhat similar to what the WDKs prior to the Windows 8 WDK provided. I will exclusively write about these and use the term WDK (or standalone WDK) uniformly, even when prior to the Vista WDK they were called DDK.
The good folks from OSR, who seem to have access to the Windows source code or people who do, confirmed during one seminar I attended some years back that the WDK used to be a trimmed down version of the toolchain used internally to build Windows around the time (~2005). Similar hints can be found from MSFT's own Larry Osterman and early works of Alex Ionescu on tinykrnl, the co-author of recent editions of "Windows Internals". BCZ likely alludes to build -cZ, a commonly used invocation with the WDKs I am describing here.
The reason it is interesting in this context is: all standalone WDKs allow you to create executables that link against msvcrt.dll by default. For the standalone WDKs msvcrt.dll is the CRT, just like for Visual C++ 2010 that's msvcr100.dll.
One should also note that the toolchains were updated alongside the Visual Studio toolchains. For example in the 3790.1830 WDK cl.exe reports as roughly on par with Visual C++ 2003:
C:\WINDDK\3790.1830\bin\x86>cl /version
Microsoft (R) 32-bit C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 13.10.4035 for 80x86
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1984-2002. All rights reserved.
And for the 6001.18002 WDK (latest to support Windows 2000!) as roughly on par with Visual C++ 2005:
C:\WINDDK\6001.18002\bin\x86\x86>cl/version
Microsoft (R) 32-bit C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 14.00.50727.278 for 80x86
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
For the 7600.16385.1 WDK it's on par with Visual C++ 2008.
Standalone WDKs
The WDK versions starting with the one for XP and up until (and including) Windows 7 SP1 did not require Visual Studio. They came with their own toolchain.
Versions prior to Windows XP required Visual C++ to build anything. If I remember correctly VC6 for the Windows 2000 DDK.
Versions starting from the Windows 8 WDK require Visual C++ again and integrate more tightly than ever with it (including wizards and even extensions for debugging and some driver-specific tasks). That's also the reason why when you use the respective WDKs, they will link to the CRT of the respective toolchain.
During the time of the standalone WDKs it was not unheard of - and that's the very reason for DDKWizard and VisualDDK - that people tried using Visual Studio to wrap the WDK build process. Some even used the unsupported method that Microsoft recommended against and built their drivers with the Visual Studio toolchains. Those unsupported methods amount roughly to what you are trying. So don't.
Anyway, the build process using WDK's build.exe with sources and makefile and so on was cumbersome and limiting. For example to build from any source file outside the current directory or its parent directory, you'd have to write your own NMake rules. After all build.exe was a wrapper around an NMake-based build. Your local makefile.inc would get included by the global one provided by the WDK/DDK.
Why linking to msvcrt.dll is officially supported
As mentioned earlier, linking against msvcrt.dll is supported with the standalone WDKs.
This is perfectly fine to do as well. In fact the USE_MSVCRT=1 statement in the sources file has exactly that effect. See here. Quoting from the 7600.16385.1 WDK documentation:
USE_MSVCRT
Use the USE_MSVCRT macro to instruct the Build utility to use the
multithreaded runtime libraries in a DLL for your build.
Syntax
USE_MSVCRT = 1
[...]
Note You should never list Msvcrt.lib or Msvcrtd.lib in TARGETLIBS. However, you can list Ntdll.lib in TARGETLIBS.
Why would Microsoft even offer this path if it were not supported by them? Correct, they wouldn't!
As a matter of fact said WDKs (XP..7 SP1) have been using the system DLL msvcrt.dll as their CRT.
Caveats
There's mainly one caveat. The way SEH is implemented has changed over time with newer Visual C++ versions. Since the toolchains from the standalone WDK correspond closely to specific Visual C++ version, they inherit the respective SEH handling.
For example when you use the Windows 7 SP1 WDK to target Windows 7 and with USE_MSVCRT=1, it statically imports _except_handler4_common. That function was not available on Windows Server 2003, for example. So trying to run such an application on versions of Windows prior to the targeted version may fail. So in such a case you are venturing into "unsupported territory" and all disclaimers apply. However, you have the option of using the method outlined here, i.e. linking to msvcrt_win2000.obj, msvcrt_winxp.obj and msvcrt_win2003.obj (available in the Vista and 7 WDKs) to achieve the level of (binary) backward compatibility you desire.
Well, on the other hand, if you decide to set WINVER=0x0601 you should also not be surprised to find that the resulting executable imports functions from kernel32.dll (or other system DLLs) which are not available on, say, Windows XP. So why expect different semantics with regard to msvcrt.dll?
As another side-note: even checked builds (commonly considered to correspond to debug builds) also link against msvcrt.dll, not its debug version counterpart! Because "checked" refers to the fact that assertions are left in; it does not refer to particular configurations of the CRT, such as "release" or "debug". The assumption that the unavailability of a debug build for msvcrt.dll in the standalone WDKs means it's somehow not the C runtime of those WDKs is plain and simple a misunderstanding of what checked build means.
There is another minor caveat. If you use, say, the Windows 7 WDK, to achieve linking against msvcrt.dll, you're using a toolchain unaware of developments since Windows 7. This includes import libraries, but also headers. So don't expect it to support features that were unavailable at the time it was released.
System DLL: msvcrt.dll
msvcrt.dll was promoted to the status of a system DLL some years ago, which means it comes included with the system (and can be relied on, literally) unlike other Visual C++ CRTs, for which you need to install the respective redistributable packages. Which is also the gist of the blog post by Raymond Chen quoted in another answer.
Since the standalone WDKs (XP..7 SP1) default to linking to msvcrt.dll as their CRT, there's no objective argument against it. Of course opinions vary.
A "reply"
Unfortunately this answer which has changed a lot since I first commented on it, perpetuates FUD and tries to pull quotes from purportedly authoritative sources out of context. It also links to original (MSFT) sources which - upon close inspection - do not support the statements for whose support they were linked.
Microsoft's Raymond Chen blogged on this a few years ago. From his
blog Windows is not a Microsoft Visual C/C++ Run-Time delivery
channel:
one DLL compatible with all versions of Visual C++ was a maintenance nightmare ... At some point, the decision was made to just give up and
declare it an operating system DLL, to be used only by operating
system components.
Emphasis mine. Think again, are you really writing something that
ships with Windows? Is it THAT difficult to add a supported file to
your setup program or link the static version of CRT, instead of
depending on a system component that Microsoft gave up on compiler
compatibility more than a decade ago?
Okay, so February 2010 is more than a decade ago (time this answer was written: March 2016)? Because that's the release date of the 7600.16385.1 WDK, which officially supports linking against msvcrt.dll.
And the rest of Raymond's statements may match what Microsoft initially intended, but he even admits that they gave up on that and promoted it to a system DLL.
Also, it's quite dishonest to mix truly ancient history (Windows 9x) with recommendations in favor of using standalone WDKs, which don't even support Windows 9x. The historical background Raymond describes is pre-W2K and non-NT. The background I describe above refers to the NT lineage of Windows and I only know the standalone DDKs/WDKs (and newer) from practice, so I cannot tell how it was or was supposed to be prior to that.
All that said: his blog is not to be confused with official documentation from Microsoft, although a lot of gems can be found on his blog and I've been an avid reader for years.
And although that is more than a decade ago, the msvcrt.dll version information in Windows 2000 (SP4) says:
Description: Microsoft (R) C Runtime Library
Product: Microsoft (R) Visual C++
Prod version: 6.10.9844.0
File version: 6.10.9844.0
... contrary to Raymond's introductory statement.
Only with Windows XP did that change to:
Description: Windows NT CRT DLL
Product: Microsoft« Windows« Operating System
It is amazing how many people are still in denial of this decision.
It's fair to assume after some previous comments that this is squarely aimed at me.
Well, I am not in denial of decisions made with the release of the Windows 8 WDK. But that doesn't "unrelease" the standalone WDKs which officially supported linking to msvcrt.dll nor does it "undocument" what can be found in their respective official documentation.
Hey, it's cool with me if you're in the luxurious position to only have to support Windows 7 or 8 and newer, or something along those lines. However, I have to support earlier Windows versions as well and so I'll make full use of the official tools provided by Microsoft for these Windows versions. Be that Visual C++ 2005 with the appropriate SDK integrated or be that a standalone WDK.
Those people caused "a lot of grief for the Visual C++ product team"
This statement refers to the aforementioned blog post by Raymond Chen, but pulls Raymond's statements out of context, specifically out of temporal context. The grief was caused by people trying approximately what the asker wants to do - and worse: reaching into the guts/internals of msvcrt.dll. And that was pre-W2K. It was not (and would not be) caused by using an official toolchain like the standalone WDKs from Microsoft.
The msvcrt version in modern versions of Windows has never been mentioned in the corresponding versions of Windows SDK.
While modern should be qualified, the use of "Windows SDK" suggests that it refers to all Windows SDKs after they were renamed from "Platform SDK". And I am inclined to readily believe that. But the poster is ignoring the standalone Windows WDKs (and prior to that DDKs) which not only mention it, but also use msvcrt.dll as their CRT. They are official toolchains from Microsoft aimed at both kernel and user mode development.
Microsoft update the CRT DLL (for example, when releasing a Windows Media Player patch) using a current toolchain that may or may not be made public.
That's correct. msvcrt.dll keeps getting updated because it has been promoted to a system DLL. And that is the contract one can rely on when using the WDKs. They're not going to break applications built with their own toolchains, just because they're patching msvcrt.dll.
You can count on them are not using the ancient WDK compiler and libs to build the msvcrt DLL in Windows
I'd not even be sure of that, but an official toolchain from 2010 isn't exactly something I'd call ancient. Besides, since Microsoft dropped support for XP and 2003 meanwhile, they only need to support Vista and onwards. That's bound to be easier with the latest Visual C++ version which directly provide the compiler and tools for the WDKs starting with the Windows 8 one.
(why ancient? Because the WDK team does not like people use their compiler to link against msvcrt either, and removed the loophole in version 8.0 to stop those "clever" people).
Oh really, does Doron actually say that at the linked forum post? Well, no:
the win7 wdk build deployed successfully because you linked against
the windows CRT (msvcrt.dll). we don't want 3rd parties doing that
anymore, so we removed that capability in the win8 wdk. it still
works for backwards compat. while it may deploy successfully, there
may be whck logo checks that make sure you use the right CRT
(emphasis mine)
The statement is about a "political decision" (and an official one at that) by Microsoft to change their stance. The "anymore" in fact implies that this only changed with the Windows 8 WDK. The first modern WDK that integrates with Visual C++ again (since the Windows 2000 DDK). So since the WDK has been demoted from a standalone toolchain to an extension that integrates with a given Visual C++ version, the new requirements are no surprise at all.
It is, btw, also dishonest to argue based on the Windows 8 WDK and newer, when the suggestions regarding standalone WDKs, which use msvcrt.dll as their CRT, were prior to that policy change. It's also dishonest to mix the history that led to the promotion of msvcrt.dll to a system DLL with the era after it had been promoted.
Glossary
CRT == C/C++ runtime
3790.1830 == Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Driver Development Kit (DDK)
6001.18002 == Windows Driver Kit SP1 for Windows Server 2008/Vista
7600.16385.1 == Windows Driver Kit version 7.1.0 (Supporting Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003)
TL;DR
Contrary to this answer it is perfectly fine to use Microsoft's own and unchanged toolchains, such as the standalone WDKs, which support linking against msvcrt.dll (XP..7 SP1) "natively". It's even documented in the documentation that comes with those toolchains (unless you decide to not install it or close your eyes :)).
You "only" have to make sure to target the correct Windows version when building (essentially the same as defining the correct WINVER). But the same can be said for other system DLLs (e.g. kernel32.dll, user32.dll ...).
However, using any Visual C++ since 2002 to link against msvcrt.dll is bound to create trouble. Don't mix and match. Simply use the CRT matching those particular Visual C++ versions.
It's not the VC6 runtime. It's a system copy of MSVCRT.DLL that's bundled with Windows rather than Visual Studio. Each new version of Windows gets a new version of MSVCRT.DLL, as you can see by checking the file sizes.
You can compile against the system copy of MSVCRT.DLL by using the Windows Driver Kit. Note that this DLL is for use "only by system-level components." What's a system-level component? Well, a driver. Or, for example, a text service:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tsfaware/archive/2008/01/17/visual-studio-2008-issues.aspx
If you're building a text service DLL ... I would recommend installing
the Vista (or XP) DDK and use the DDKWizard instead. The DDK comes
with its own C/C++ compiler that uses the C Runtime Library that ships
with the OS (and won't cause problems with other applications) ...
More information:
http://kobyk.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/dynamically-linking-with-msvcrtdll-using-visual-c-2005/
A question arises, what does Microsoft do? They deploy their
applications to a variety of Windows environments. A look at Windbg’s
dependencies showed it’s using MSVCRT.DLL rather than one of the newer
CRTs. Microsoft’s new Network Monitor 3.1 also uses MSVCRT.DLL.
Windows Desktop Search is also using the old, trusty CRT.
How can all these new applications be using the vintage CRT? They’re
not still using the antique, unsupported Visual C++ 6.0, are they?
Well, no. The answer is more complicated and can be found in the
Windows Driver Kit (WDK).
Update: The Windows 8 Driver Kit introduced a new MSBuild-based build system, which no longer links against the system copy of MSVCRT.DLL. However, binaries built with the Windows 7 Driver Kit still work on Windows 8 and Windows 10.
MSVCRT.DLL is still shipped with Windows 10 for backward compatibility, so it carries a File version of 7.0.#####. A component that is still being actively developed, such as user32.dll, carries a File version of 10.0.#####.
An average "Petzold-style" Win32 program only needs a few functions out of msvcrt.dll. In my case, I often need the float-point formatting routines, like _sntprintf(). And it's unlikely that the functionality of such functions ever changes. For this reason, I created an msvcrt-light.lib import library (download) as a replacement for the standard library which I include in the MSVC project.
For full-fledged C++ programs, msvcrt-light.lib may not be suitable at all. Use the DDK as stated above.
This requires CRT compatibility across major compiler releases, which Microsoft tried to accommodate (e.g. added a VC5 heap to the VC6SP2 runtime) but eventually gave up on and introduced msvcrxx.dll that are in use today. If you look at the CRT source, you will find lots of #ifndef _SYSCRT, that's the difference between Microsoft's msvcrt.dll and the one used by your compiler when generating code.
Microsoft's Raymond Chen blogged on this a few years ago.
From his blog Windows is not a Microsoft Visual C/C++ Run-Time delivery channel:
one DLL compatible with all versions of Visual C++ was a maintenance nightmare
...
At some point, the decision was made to just give up and declare it an
operating system DLL, to be used only by operating system components.
Emphasis mine. Think again is it THAT difficult to add a supported file to your setup program or link the static version of CRT, instead of depending on a system component that Microsoft gave up on compiler compatibility more than a decade ago?
It is amazing how many people are still in denial of this decision. Those people caused "a lot of grief for the Visual C++ product team", and if you keep pissing them off, I won't be surprised if they piss you off sometimes like what they did in Windows XP that crashed a lot of VC6 apps. A lot of people did not follow Windows 2000 application developer guidelines and put settings/game saves in the Program Files folder. We all know what a good ending it is when Windows Vista was released.
By the way the dll is not VC6's. Using an old dll in the system would fail the Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle automatically. (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20100607-00/?p=13793/#10020962). You don't realistically expect Microsoft use VC6 to compile its modern product, do you?
The msvcrt version in modern versions of Windows has never been mentioned in the corresponding versions of Windows SDK. Whatever compiler version or CRT lib version you use, it most likely won't match the majority of DLL versions on your customer's machine. Microsoft update the CRT DLL (for example, when releasing a Windows Media Player patch) using a current toolchain that may or may not be made public. You can count on them are not using the ancient WDK compiler and libs to build the msvcrt DLL in Windows (why ancient? Because the WDK team does not like people use their compiler to link against msvcrt either, and removed the loophole in version 8.0 to stop those "clever" people).
I develop an unmanaged DLL with Visual C++ which is part of my application. I have always had various problems with linking the VC runtime library. Somehow I managed with VS 2005, but since I moved to VS 2008, the release version of my DLL no longer works on any PC other than the one with my development tools (namely VS 2008).
I link the runtime library as multi-threaded DLL (/MD). I tried the /MT option but that causes a lot of error messages. I allow isolation of the manifest file, and of course installed the VC++ 2008 runtime (although I don't think it should be needed). I also tried the dependency walker to check what is missing. On my development PC (VS 2008 SP1 installed) three files are reported missing:
MSVCR90.DLL, GPSVC.DLL, IESHIMS.DLL
But that does not stop the application (and my DLL) from running.
On all other PCs I tried to install my application on, apart from these three, a fourth file is reported as missing by dep. walker: MSVCP90.DLL.
More importantly, my own DLL is not working as well.
I know this is nothing new and I tried to read everything I could find about SxS problems but I still don't know what to do. Hopefully my description of the 'phenomenon' is good enough for someone more experienced to give me some help.
Thanks in advance.
You may need to distribute and install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable, OR SP1 versionf of it.