Question

My team and I are developing a VC++ 6 project.
We are all using the same code-base (using version control system), and all our compiler/linker/environment-settings (including include directories order), as far as we can tell, are exactly the same.
Of course we are using the same VC++ version with the same service packs (VC6 SP6).

The problem is that the EXE that each one of us build is a little bit different.

I know that every time you build an EXE on the same computer, there are 3 locations in the file where the linker stores a time-stamp. I’m not talking about these differences.

Though our EXE files are exactly the same length, when we compare the EXEs, there are 1000’s of bytes that differs. Many of those bytes differs by 0x20 in value.

Any idea what may be the reason?

Edit: Debug build (Actually, We didn’t check the release).

Edit: The differences are in binary sections, not in text-strings.

Edit: All of the developers are using the same drive/folder names, for source and for products.

Answer 1

If Debug version has the option “Link incrementally” checked, then probably it’s the reason for the diffs.