VS2010 Native Multi-Targeting - visual-studio-2010

I have VS2005, VS2008, and VS2010 installed on my Win7 development machine. I have one particular project that uses a 3rd party DLL that gets an exception during the LoadLibrary() call when the EXE project is built by VS2010 (when targeting either the v100 or v90 toolset.) It works perfectly when built by directly VS2005 or VS2008.
According to Li Shao's (of Microsoft) 2009 blog entry:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2009/12/08/c-native-multi-targeting.aspx
I should be able to open the VS2010 project and change the Platform Toolset from v100 to v90 and then VS2010 will actually use the VS2008 compiler, headers and libraries to build the program. If it is, then it isn't doing it "right" because the DLL will not load when the project is built this way. I tried looking at the build log to verify which compiler is used, but there are no paths or version numbers in my logs, so that was a bust.
This is a plain C (not C++, not MFC, not .NET) project written directly to the Win32Apis. Is there any way for this to work, or am I just stuck using a different compiler for a single project (out of over 100 that comprise the whole system)?
HELP!

Have a look at Daffodil: http://daffodil.codeplex.com/
After installing Daffodil, you'll be able to use VS 2010 to build projects using older versions of the libraries.

I think I've solved it. It seems that, while VS2010 will happily run the VS2008 compiler, linker, etc. VS2010 will NOT leave the project alone. When the project is imported to VS2010 there are some new default settings added to the command line and, apparently, at least one of them is different enough from VS2008 to make the DLL I'm using fail to load.
When I changed the Advanced Linker setting for Data Execution Prevention (DEP) from Yes (the default) to NO, my program started working again! In fact, I no longer even need to compile using the v90 toolset -- the ENTIRE problem was caused by the new default for the /NXCOMPAT linker command line switch. The /NXCOMPAT switch isn't even referenced in the project settings in the VS2005 IDE (where the project was created), but running "link /?" in the VC8 bin folder shows that the switch was known and the default was NO.
Too bad the Visual Studio IDE doesn't include a list of default settings that were in use by a project that have CHANGED in the new version. If that is too difficult, the importer should specify the changed settings using the old default values, otherwise the project was imported incorrectly, wasn't it?

Related

Crash when building C++ program in Visual Studio with "Use Link Time Code Generation" enabled, only for x64 platform

I have two C++ Visual Studio (16.5.0 Preview 2.0) projects: a library and an application that uses it. The library project produces four .lib files (for x86/x64 and release/debug), which the other statically links against. The application was until recently working fine in all configurations. Then recently I modified the library and rebuilt the .libs, and now when I build the application for x64 with "Use Link Time Code Generation" enabled, it crashes at runtime with an (apparently impossible) access violation. Note that the x86 build works with or without LTCG, and the x64 build works without it ("No Whole Program Optimization"). I've tried clean builds of both solutions and double-checked that I'm linking against the correct .lib.
This probably isn't a lot to go on, but does anyone have an inkling what the issue could be? Could VS's LTCG somehow cause the linker to use the old code?

VS2017 with Clang 6 keeps recompiling everything

I use Clang 6.0.0 (from the latest build of the Windows installer) with Visual Studio 2017 to build my project, and everything works fine except for one thing, it rebuilds every file every single time. Not only that, it even recompiles everything when no code changed at all and I merely use "Start Debugging" or "Start Without Debugging"! The .obj files are still there, but it doesn't seem to be reusing them, which of course is prohibitively slow!
This happens only when using Clang 6 with "LLVM-vs2014" set in my project, when I switch "Visual Studio 2017 (v141)" or "Visual Studio 2017 - Clang with Microsoft CodeGen (v141_clang_c2)" I don't have that problem, it only compiles what changed.
What could possibly cause this behaviour?
Edit: Maybe that's what the website means by "A 64-bit version is also available, but it doesn't integrate as well with Visual Studio."
You can use fafnir.
https://github.com/kazatsuyu/fafnir
Visual Studio manages build dependencies using .tlog file, but it appears to generate wrong dependencies for recent clang. To fix it, fafnir uses API hooking to SetFileInformationByHandle through DLL injection.
Usage
Download the latest version from the release page on GitHub
Unzip it
Run install.bat
Specify the path of the directory of LLVM/clang
Specify new_toolset_name (in the form of v[0-9]+_clang_.*)
References
(Written in Japanese) Visual Studioでも最新のClangを使えるようにしたらキャッシュされていなかった
(Written in Japanese) Visual Studioでも最新のClangが使いたい!

Visual C++ executable and missing MSVCR100d.dll

I know this has been asked in other places and answered, but I'm having issues with MS Visual Studio 2010. I've developed a C++ executable but if I run the Release version on a machine that doesn't have the VC++ runtime library (ie, msvcr100d.dll), I get the "program cannot start because msvcr100d.dll is missing from your computer" error.
This is weird for two reasons:
Why is it trying to link with the debug version of the redistributable?
I tried applying this fix, setting the runtime library setting to /MT instead of /MD (multi-threaded DLL), but that only made the problem worse (if I manually copied msvcr100d.dll, it then said it couldn't find msvcp110.dll).
How can I package the runtime library with my executable so that I can run it on machines that don't have MS VC 2010 or the redistributable installed?
I know it's considered a security risk to include a copy of the DLL since it won't ever be updated, but my goal is just to send this executable to a few friends in the short term.
You definitely should not need the debug version of the CRT if you're compiling in "release" mode. You can tell they're the debug versions of the DLLs because they end with a d.
More to the point, the debug version is not redistributable, so it's not as simple as "packaging" it with your executable, or zipping up those DLLs.
Check to be sure that you're compiling all components of your application in "release" mode, and that you're linking the correct version of the CRT and any other libraries you use (e.g., MFC, ATL, etc.).
You will, of course, require msvcr100.dll (note the absence of the d suffix) and some others if they are not already installed. Direct your friends to download the Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable (or x64), or include this with your application automatically by building an installer.
For me the problem appeared in this situation:
I installed VS2012 and did not need VS2010 anymore.
I wanted to get my computer clean and also removed the VS2010 runtime executables, thinking that no other program would use it.
Then I wanted to test my DLL by attaching it to a program (let's call it program X).
I got the same error message.
I thought that I did something wrong when compiling the DLL.
However, the real problem was that I attached the DLL to program X, and program X was compiled in VS2010 with debug info. That is why the error was thrown.
I recompiled program X in VS2012, and the error was gone.
This problem explained in MSDN Library and as I understand installing Microsoft's Redistributable Package can help.
But sometimes the following solution can be used (as developer's side solution):
In your Visual Studio, open Project properties -> Configuration properties -> C/C++ -> Code generation
and change option Runtime Library to /MT instead of /MD
Usually the application that misses the .dll indicates what version you need – if one does not work, simply download the Microsoft visual C++ 2010 x86 or x64
from this link:
For 32 bit OS:Here
For 64 bit OS:Here
I got the same error.
I was refering a VS2010 DLL in a VS2012 project.
Just recompiled the DLL on VS2012 and now everything is fine.
Debug version of the vc++ library dlls are NOT meant to be redistributed!
Debug versions of an application are not redistributable, and debug
versions of the Visual C++ library DLLs are not redistributable. You
may deploy debug versions of applications and Visual C++ DLLs only to
your other computers, for the sole purpose of debugging and testing
the applications on a computer that does not have Visual Studio
installed. For more information, see Redistributing Visual C++ Files.
I will provide the link as well : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa985618.aspx

Remote debugging an app with the DEBUG versions of the CRT when VS is not installed on the remote machine

First let me say that I can remote debug a release build on the remote computer. I set up my release build much like my debug build but I mostly had to make sure the Debug flag was not set. I've dealt with doing this for a while and finally decided to try and figure out why I had to go through this. I should also mention that my remote debugging experience is limited to this project and the C# program uses a C++/CLI (built with /clr) .DLL to mediate to some critical C++ libs. I don't need to debug the underlying C++ libs but I do need to debug the C++/CLI code. (One reason I mention this is I can't link libs in statically while using the /clr flag).
I recently discovered Dependency Walker so I used it to see what was going on. Turns out with the debug flag set, the linker links in MSVCR100D.DLL and MSVCP100D.DLL, when the flag isn't set it uses the files without the "D" suffix. Now normally I might just copy over my versions of those .DLLs to the remote machine but there's a problem. My dev laptop with VS2010 is a 64 bit machine and the target machine is 32 bit. That means the only versions of those DLLs I own are 64 bit. I have installed the remote debugging for VS2010 (I had this same problem under 2008) on the remote machine but it doesn't include the debug versions of these .DLLs either (I'm not sure why but I'm assuming this is by design). So my questions are:
As a registered owner of VS2010 is there a valid source for 32 bit versions of these .DLLs I can put on the remote machine?
Is there a simpler way for me to get Debug support? That is can I change some other setting that just tells VS to not use the debug version of those two DLLs? The advantage here is the DEBUG symbol would be set and any conditional code using it would work.
The debug versions of the CRT DLLs are all available with the standard Visual Studio installation, including the x86 versions even on 64-bit machines.
By default, they're located in the following path:
<Program Files folder>\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\redist\Debug_NonRedist
Under that folder, you'll find two additional folders (x64 and x86) that contain the debugging versions of these DLLs for the respective platforms.
But pay special attention to the name of the folder (Debug_NonRedist). That indicates that these debug DLLs are not redistributable. It's certainly OK for a developer who owns a license for VS to use them when testing his/her code on another machine, but they should not be distributed to client machines and used to run your application. (Sounds like from your question that you know this, but it's worth pointing out anyway for future Googlers.)
Alternatively, you can change which version of the CRT DLLs that a Visual Studio project links to for specific project configurations. That means that you can compile a "Debug" version of your application, but tell Visual Studio to link to the full redistributable versions of the CRT.
To do that:
Right-click on your project in the Solution Explorer and select "Properties".
Ensure that the "Debug" configuration is selected in the drop-down box at the top of the dialog.
Expand the "C/C++" item in the TreeView, and select "Code Generation".
Change the setting of the "Runtime Library" option to either "Multi-threaded DLL (/MD)" or "Multi-threaded (/MT)".
Notice here that you're just telling Visual Studio not to use the "Debug" variants of each of these options. They still mean the same thing. The first will dynamically link to a DLL, the second will statically link the CRT into your application. Pick the one most appropriate for your case. (I often find it convenient to configure my "Debug" builds to statically link exactly for instances like this.)
This question is for an older version of Visual Studio, but in case anyone comes here for a newer version (as I did), there is built-in support to deploy the debug DLLs that you need in VS 2013 (perhaps earlier). This is an obvious setting, but it can be easy to miss if one is rushing through things (as I was). So maybe this will help somebody.
In the property pages, under Debugging, when Debugger to launch is set to Remote Windows Debugger, in the property list, there is an option called Deploy Visual C++ Debug Runtime Libraries. Simply set that to Yes.
Update -- as requested, this is to clarify which property pages I'm referring to, by way of how to access them: In Solution Explorer, right click the startup project (the one in bold), and click Properties on the context menu. The Property Pages window appears. In the panel on the left side, expand Configuration Properties, and then select Debugging, the second item under Configuration Properties.
Edit to the Update: I got here via notification, and did not see that I could have just said, "See Cody Gray's answer for a picture of the window," to meet the request for clarification. But, there's the how-to anyway in case anyone needs it.

Any addins for VS2010 to support VS2005 projects?

Some of the old projects in our company are left to be built with VS2005 in autobuild system (making them build correctly in 2010 cost time). Is it any addins for VS2010 that will allow to open VS2005 project and edit it's files without converting project file itself to VS2010 format (converting will kill autobuild)? Of course i can create a separate project named "xxx_vs2010.vcproj" for each of such products, but that will be a mess :(.
No.
An alternative to consider is to target the VS2005 C++ toolchain from within VS2010. See Native Multi-Targeting and the Project Upgrade Guide. That way, no need to modify source code to appease the VS2010 C++ compiler.

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