I have a Visual C# Project that is fairly basic (no more than 100 lines) but it includes some 3rd party DLL references. Running the project on the computer it was developed on has it run just fine.
In Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express, I go to Project->Publish <project name> and it builds some files including a setup.exe installer.
When I move those files to another computer and run the setup.exe, it correctly installs the program.
But when I run the program, it simply closes out saying:
ProjectName.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
The command window also appears for a brief second with some errors, but it's hard to make out what it is saying. It looks something like:
Unhandled Exception: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: Retrieving the COM class factory for the component with CLSID { ....... } failed due to the following error: .....
I'm unable to get the command window to stay, so I cannot get the full message. But I assume this is due to the other computer not having those 3rd party DLLS.
How can I have Visual C# 2010 package everything including DLLs so this error does not appear? Or if that may not be the actual issue, how can I stop the command window from instantly vanishing? (I do not know the full list of DLLs required)
Or if the DLL is a registered DLL under C:\Windows\system32, is the project never going to build that into the package? Is there a way to see what it depends on?
Visual Studio 2010 Express doesn't create fully functional installers, but only ClickOnce installers, and those also with limited functions. This kind of installer can't register COM DLLs.
What seems to be wrong in your case is that you are using a COM DLL which isn't registered on the target system. You could try to check that in your own program (like trying to create the class and catch any exceptions that are thrown by the CreateObject function), and call RegSvr32.exe /s in order to register it. Or you just do this when the program starts the first time, before you create any object from the DLL... haven't tried that, though.
You could also make sure that you register the DLL manually on the target system before you run your program.
Moreover, when .Net uses a COM DLL, it usually creates a compatibility assembly which wraps the COM DLL and makes it accessibly to .Net. In case the DLL you use is only this compatibility assembly, you might have to locate the COM DLL it depends on manually on your system and to include it explicitly in your project's files.
In order to debug, it should be enough to put try / catch blocks around CreateObject. If that doesn't help, try adding an eventhandler for the event that is raised when an exception isn't handled by the application (this might be different according to the kind of application you create).
Related
In Visual Studio (C#), ticking 'Register for COM interop' updates the Windows environment such that my Visual Studio project, its dependent Visual Studio projects (in same solution) & dependent DLL files are all available for another COM-consuming application on the same machine. This COM-consuming application works with no issue.
If I want the same COM objects to be available to a consuming application on another machine, what must I do?
I assume I still build with the same flag set (so that the DLL files have COM content)? I assume I must register the COM DLL file (e.g. regasm) - Unfortunately this doesn't work - do I register every DLL file that I am constructing & every DLL file library they reference?
Please make no assumptions about my COM knowledge.
You don't quite provide enough information to answer with certainty, but there are enough hints to guess at what you are doing.
When your client app asks for the COM object, the .NET runtime is invoked and it locates the COM-exposing assembly DLL from the information stored by RegAsm (specifically by the /codebase parameter). But after that, it's all .NET assembly loading rules - including the loading of dependencies.
If your COM assembly has dependencies, the dependent assemblies must be locatable from the client process. It doesn't matter whether the dependencies are in the same folder as the COM DLL - the one loading those dependencies is the process, not your COM DLL. The .NET runtime uses a process called Fusion to decide where to look for .NET assemblies.
You have two practical choices:
Put the COM DLL, its dependencies and the client EXE all in the same folder. This works if there is only one client, and you control the client (so, don't do this if the client is IIS, for example). It's the simplest solution.
Give all the .NET components a strong name and deploy them to the GAC1. You still have to run RegAsm; but don't use the /codebase argument.
It is also possible to customize the Fusion rules by giving the client app a manifest with the proper entries, but that's too much of a hassle. The other options are more practical.
If this doesn't describe your problem, then I would use a combination of SysInternals' (now Microsoft's) Process Monitor and the .NET fusion log functionality to look into where the process is seeking the different DLLs.
1Technically you don't have to put the main COM DLL in the GAC, but it makes no sense to use /codebase for the COM DLL when you have to deal with GAC anyway. At that point you might as well put them all in the GAC
I have a C# project in which I have a COM Reference. It compiles fine when opened in VS 2013. But, it fails as part of TFS build definition.
TFS version : 2013
TFS Build Controller & Agent : 2013
VS version : 2013
The failure message says that it could not find the Interop dll. I cannot manually create the Interop dll and check-in into TFS because it would keep changing and I want my C# project to always take the udpated COM reference.
I tried the COMFileReference suggestion but it did not solve my issue. I even manually registered the COM dll using regsvr32 but still I am facing the issue.
Any help is highly appreciated.
Regards,
kvk1985
A COM reference is the safest way to ensure that your program matches the actual installed component when you test your code. The compiler will read the type library of the component, a very similar mechanism that's used for normal .NET assembly references. Except that the type definitions come from the type library instead of .NET metadata.
But has a disadvantage in your case, it can only work when the component is actually installed on the machine. That probably did not happen on that build server. That's fairly normal, the people that maintain build servers don't particularly like anybody messing with it. And it is a maintenance headache, the build breaks when the devs update their machine with the latest version but forget to update the build server as well. And old builds get to be hard to reproduce.
So installing the component on the build server is the Quick Fix. If that's an insurmountable obstacle then somebody needs to run Tlbimp.exe on their machine. That generates the interop assembly, it needs to be checked-in to source control. And the project must be modified, remove the COM reference and add the reference to the generated interop library. It will now build the same way on the build server and the dev machines.
That's of course brittle the other way, if a dev updates the component on his machine then there will be a mismatch with the interop assembly. That can be a very ugly one, an E_NOINTERFACE runtime error if the COM vendor did it right, something excessively nasty like calling the wrong method, a stack imbalance or an AVE if he didn't. Otherwise the exact same kind of failures that can occur if the user's machine doesn't have the right version of the component installed. Standard DLL Hell.
You'll have to make the call yourself, there's no One Right Answer.
I'm not a a very experienced Windows developer, so I hope this all makes sense.
I created a Managed Assembly DLL using Visual Studio 2010. The DLL (Plip.dll) contains a C++ class that is using System.IO.SerialPort class to do some simple communication over a serial port.
In a second Visual Studio project I created a simple GUI that uses the class found in Plip.dll. In my GUI project I have the line : #using "Plip.dll" . In the Project Properties I set the 'Resolve #using References' value to the correct location of Plip.dll. The GUI builds just fine. If I copy the GUI.exe and Plip.dll to the same folder, the GUI runs just fine on my computer.
The problem I am having is that when I copy both files to a second computer, I cannot get the GUI executable to run. I get the following error : "System.IO.FileNotFoundException. Could not load file or assembly "Plip.dll" Vesion=.... ". I get this error even though both the exe and dll are located in the same folder.
Any suggestions on how to resolve this issue? Is there some option I need to set in my GUI project to load the DLL correctly at run time?
I suppose the problem is not the Plip.dll, but it's dependencies.
Use Dependency Walker on the second computer to see if it needs any other dll's (they might be installed in System folder or in %PATH% on your development computer, but not on the other).
If this second computer doesn't have Visual Studio installed, you are probably missing Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (you need to install it on the other computer)
Also make sure that you compile in Release because debug builds need debug dependencies.
I found the answer to this problem to be much simpler than Dependency Walker (but admittedly, that was fun to look at).
In my case, the issue was a mis-match between the .DotNet versions in the DLL and with the application's .net version. This was caused by building the "class library" using .DotNet 6.0 (dot net core?).
Instead, the entire class needed to be re-built using "Class Library (.NET Framework)"
enter image description here
I wrote an article on this problem.
https://keyliner.blogspot.com/2022/09/visual-studio-c-linked-dll-exception.html
I have a C# 4.0 application that is referencing a type library from a C++ application. This is used for some secure COM interop, a question I originally had asked here.
On my development machine this second application is installed so I can compile without any issues. If I attempt to compile on our automated build server, or any machine with Visual Studio installed but without this second program, I receive the following errors and compilation fails:
Text for google:
The type or namespace name could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
Cannot get the file path for type library "guid...." version 1.0. Library not registered. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8002801D (TYPE_E_LIBNOTREGISTERED))
The referenced component 'SecurityAgentLib' could not be found
Picture for readability:
I'm not sure how to get around this other than by installing the application that registers the actual dll that implements these types, but I don't want to do that on our build server. The code that uses these types are wrapped in a class that is never instantiated unless prerequisite checks are run to verify the app is actually installed, so there is no chance of a runtime error. In fact I can run my app just fine on a machine without the second app installed - I just can't compile it there.
In visual studio the reference points to the .tlb file which is included in the solution directory, so the tlb file itself is present.
I can't imagine it should work this way, and I've searched around, but I'm apparently not searching for the right terms.
EDIT:
Running tlbimp.exe generates a dll but the type library should be sufficient for compilation, I thought at least. There is also an issue of broken references. I was reading this article Troubleshooting Broken References and it says that if the reference was to a COM component that is not installed than installing the component corrects the error, which is true.
Installing it on the build server really isn't an option. Opening visual studio and re-adding a reference if the path was broken doesn't work either.
I was able to use tlbimp to create a dll and used visual studio add a reference to that dll. That let me compile, but how would this work in an unattended build server?
EDIT
Okay I came up with two solutions that worked given my requirement of this all being unattended
Ran tlbimp to create a dll from the type library. I removed the reference to the tlb from my project and added a reference to the dll itself. When the source code was copied over to a new computer it compiled without issues.
In this scenario ideally we would checkout from SVN on the build server and copy the latest DLL from the second project, then compile this project.
I also removed the tlb and added the dll in visual studio and did a diff on the .csproj file. I don't see any downside to just having a reference to the dll instead of the tlb but if needed the build server could make modifications directly to this file to remove the tlb section and add a reference to the dll following a build of the second product.
Here are a couple options that each worked.
Ran tlbimp to create a dll from the type library. I removed the reference to the tlb from my project and added a reference to the dll itself. When the source code was copied over to a new computer it compiled without issues.
In this scenario ideally we would checkout from SVN on the build server and copy the latest DLL from the second project, then compile this project.
I also removed the tlb and added the dll and did a diff on the .csproj file. I don't see any downside to just having a reference to the dll instead of the tlb but the build server could make modifications directly to this file to remove the tlb
I have developed a Win32 Console app DLL and a small tester application for it. As far as I know neither uses MFC, .COM, .NET or dot-anything else. Development platform is VS2009 on WinXP/SP3
When I give the DLL and EXE to someone else, they are unusable. Attempting to use them generates errors similar to "Application cannot be used, the application configuration is wrong." and "cannot find xxx.dll" (not exact wording on these error messages).
I have learned from reading that there are dependencies that must ship with the EXE and DLL. These dependencvies seem to be specific to VS 2009 abd should include the MSVCRT09, etc.
When I followed MS's instruction to make a setup.exe/MSI installer for a Setup and Deployment Project (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235317%28v=VS.90%29.aspx) I add the dll to the project, move it to the "MyLibrary" folder and no dependencies are found or listed in the Solution Explorer. Yet, I know there are dependencies, DEPENDS.EXE says so.
Can anyone walk me through this or name a better site with instructions. Once again, MS's help isn't all that helpful.
thanks,
Wes
Visual Studio 2008 is version 9.0. A program built with Visual C++ 2008 normally does have dependencies on the C run time library MSVCRT09, as you discovered. If the C run time library is not installed on the destination PC (either already installed or as part of your setup project) then your application fails, as you discovered. It is no surprise that DEPENDS.EXE displays the dependency. The only question seems to be why Visual Studio 2008 doesn't display the dependency in its Solution Explorer window.
Before building your Visual Studio setup project (MSI and setup file), Visual Studio might not have had any reason yet to search for dependencies. But after the setup project is built, in my experience the Solution Explorer does show the dependencies it found, next to other dependencies that you set explicitly. If those don't show up after building, something is weird.