Is there a way to see what dll files my executable file will be needing in Visual Studio 2010?
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Is there a way to see what dll files my executable file will be needing in Visual Studio 2010?
You can use the Dependency Walker utility to see all of the DLLs that a Windows application requires (or depends upon).
You can download either the 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) versions of the app from the linked website.
But, in general, you’re going to be dependent upon a bunch of system DLLs, stuff that comes with Windows that you should not redistribute yourself. Feel free to ignore those whenever they appear in the list. The user will either have them (if she has the appropriate version of Windows), or won’t have them (if they have an earlier version of Windows that did not provide the functionality contained in those libraries), in which case your application will not run. You’ll need to write fallback code to handle these cases. Attempting to redistribute system DLLs will not work. You cannot add functionality to earlier versions of Windows just by sticking the DLLs in the Windows folder.
If you’re compiling with one of Microsoft’s compilers, such as the one bundled with Visual Studio, you’ll also have a dependency upon the CRT libraries. You can download redistributable installers for the appropriate version of the CRT on MSDN.
I highly recommend creating an installer (setup program), which you use to deploy your application. This significantly eases the install pains for end users, and also makes your job as a programmer easier.