c++ - Problems with running EXE file built with Visual Studio on another computer

Question

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?

Answer 1

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 :)