I currently have a VS6 unmanaged C library that I deliver as either a .lib or .dll. I want to upgrade to VS2010 but I still have users that are in VS6, VS2005, and VS2008.
Can a .lib or .dll built in VS2010 be used in VS6, VS2005, or VS2008?
Thanks!
It depends on the runtime used to build the libraries. I would typically run into this problem when upgrading solutions from VS2005 to VS2008. The default runtime libraries are different from edition to edition.
When you're building the .lib and .dll, those files are getting linked against those editions of the runtime. Problems will typically be found when you're debugging the program between different VS editions or running it on a non-developer machine when assemblies built with different runtimes attempt to pass information across boundaries. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/abx4dbyh.aspx for details.
I know this is an old post but if anyone else comes across it this may be useful, upgrading from vc6 to vs2010 is a nightmare, but there is an alternative. You can upgrade to VS2010 environment while still using vc6 compiler. the tool you need is Daffodil and can be found here http://daffodil.codeplex.com/
This was our solution because the VS2010 environment is way more productive.
Related
I'm getting a DLLNotFoundException in standalone builds on some windows machines, others work perfectly. Dll file is definitely in the plugins folder, copied it to the projectName_Data folder too but no difference.
Also attempted to add dll to streaming assets folder and set new path (Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable) as above but that didn't work either.
Using Unity 4.5.5 btw
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated!!!
What I found is that the error DllNotFoundException is, in some circumstances, very misleading. Unity is not to blame for this because when something goes wrong with dll loading, Unity simply doesn't have that dll in memory and tells you so.
As Keysosaurus says, Visual C++ Redistributable must be installed for your standalone version to work and in most cases this solves the trouble but there can be other reasons like third party dependencies.
In case you are using third party libraries then you must also copy all the needed DLLs or SOs to your executable's folder.
For example I am working with OpenNI 2 and when I build I immediately copy all files from C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenNI2\Redist folder to the folder that contains the .exe. Not doing this results in DllNotFoundException.
Also don't forget that DLLs (and SOs) must match the architecture you are targeting so if you are targeting x64 (64 bit) then your DLL must be x64 too and if you try to use a x86 (32 bit) DLL Unity will be confused and will not load that giving you the same error.
As a side note bear in mind that Unity 5 comes both in 32 and 64 bit versions. In order to run your game in Unity Editor, all third party libraries must be present in both x86 and x64 (in Unity's conventional folders) or at least the one that matches you Unity Editor's architecture.
I discovered that the problem was that players needed Visual C++ redistributable installed, which can be downloaded here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=40784
I'm having a problem with assembly resolution on an end-user machine and I believe it's related to using Portable Class Libraries....
I have a .NET 4.0 application that was originally written in Visual Studio 2010. Recently we upgraded to Visual Studio 2012 and we've created a few projects that are Portable Class Libraries. I don't believe we need these features now, but we're also building a Windows 8 Store application that might benefit from these libraries.
When I compile my project, what exactly does the portable library feature do? I expect that it allows me to run it on different frameworks without modification or recompiling.
When I look at the library in reflector dotPeek it shows the Platform attribute as:
.NETPortable,Version=v4.0,Profile=Profile5
And the references seem 2.0-ish:
mscorlib, Version=2.0.5.0
System, Version=2.0.5.0
System.Runtime.Serialization, Version=2.0.5.0
When I run the application on this end-user's machine, I see an error in the log file:
Could not load file or assembly, 'System.Core, Version=2.0.5.0...'
Googling System.Core 2.0.5.0 seems to refer to SilverLight -- which appears to be one of the targeted frameworks.
This machine does not have Visual Studio installed, but has .NET 4.0 (4.0.3 update)
Is there something I should be doing differently to compile, something I should investigate in my dependencies or something I should be looking to install on the end-user machine? What does the 2.0.5.0 refer to?
For .NET 4, you need an update (KB2468871) for Portable Class Libraries to work. From the KB Article:
Feature 5
Changes to the support portable libraries. These changes include API
updates and binder modifications. This update enables the CLR to bind
successfully to portable libraries so that a single DLL can run on the
.NET Framework 4, on Silverlight, on Xbox, or on the Windows Phone.
This update adds public Silverlight APIs to the .NET Framework 4 in
the same location. The API signatures will remain consistent across
the platform. All modifications are 100 percent compatible and will
not break any existing code.
Also see the "Deploying A .NET Framework App" section of the MSDN Portable Class Library Documentation.
EDIT: Actually, if the machine has .NET 4.0.3 installed as you mention, that should be sufficient. Can you double-check to make sure that it is actually installed?
System.Data.SQLite (SDS) is apparently the most popular way to use SQLite from a .Net application.
I was wondering if
SDS requires shipping the SQLite DLL in addition, or if SDS includes
the SQLite source code, and
SDS can be statically compiled into a
VB.Net application of it can only be shipped as a DLL?
Thank you.
To expand on my comment, SDS is a .net wrapper for unmanaged code, so you will need to ship your release code with a copy of the DLL.
As Steve mentions, there are 32 and 64bit versions of the DLL, and as i discovered after much frustration, you must have the corresponding visual c++ runtime installed on the target machine, so if you deploy the 32bit version onto a 64bit machine, it will need the 32bit c++ runtime environment installed.
An alternative that i am currently looking into but havent had time to test is csharpe-sqlite, a pure .net implementation:
http://code.google.com/p/csharp-sqlite/
Coded in c# as the name suggests, but of course usable in any .net language including vb.net
Actually it's quite easy to compile System.Data.SQLite.dll to the does not require C++ runtime. For example if you download source code and follow the build procedures you'll find statically linked (no C/C++ runtime required) copy of System.Data.SQLite.dll in the following path:
<your-src-root>\bin\<2008 or 2010>\<Win32 or x64>\ReleaseStatic
For example if your source is in C:\Work\sqlite-netFx-source-1.0.80.0 then statically linked binary for Win32 and .NET 3.5 (VS 2008) will be located in:
C:\Work\sqlite-netFx-source-1.0.80.0\bin\2008\Win32\ReleaseStatic
Furthermore since System.Data.SQLite.dll is a mixed-mode assembly consisting of a managed .netmodule and native .obj file linked together using link.exe, it is possible to build your app as a .netmodule as well and link it together with SQLite into a single mixed mode assembly.
The resulting assembly will still be either Win32 or x64, however since almost all x64 machines will have no problem running Win32 code you can just settle on Win32 as long as:
Your app is an .exe or a .dll the is always loaded into a Win32 process, and
You don't use any of x64 specific advantages such as larger address space or using unmanaged code available only in x64
When I try to run the dll I compiled in Visual Studio 2010, I get the following message: This assembly is built by a runtime newer than the currently loaded runtime and cannot be loaded. I'm guessing this means that I am a too recent version of Visual Studio. Is there a way I can build the dll as an earlier version?
All assemblies in your final solution, be they dlls or exes, in different solutions or in the same one, must target the same version of the CLR. You can ensure they do by configuring targeting in your 2010 solution.
Most likely you're targeting 4.0 in your dll's project. Crank it back to 3.5 or earlier and see if that fixes the problem.
I am trying to add a VC6 COM DLL to our VS2010RC C# solution. The DLL was compiled with the VC6 tools to create an x86 version and was compiled with the VC7 Cross-platform tools to generate a VC7 DLL.
The x86 version of the assembly works fine as long as the consuming C# project's platform is set to x86. It doesn't matter whether the x64 or the x86 version of the DLL is actually registered. It works with both. If the platform is set to 'Any CPU' I receive a BadImageFormatException on the load of the Interop.<name>.dll.
As for the x64 version, I cannot even get the project to build. I receive the tlbimp error:
TlbImp : error TI0000: A single valid machine type compatible with the
input type library must be specified.
Has anyone seen this issue?
EDIT:
I've done a lot more digging into this issue and think this may be a Visual Studio bug. I have a clean solution. I bring in my COM assembly with language agnostic 'Any CPU' selected. The process architecture of the resulting Interop DLL is x86 rather than MSIL.
May have to make the Interop by hand for now to get this to work.
If anyone has another suggestion let me know.
This issue can be resolved by opening the CSProj file and adding the following node to any of the '(Configuration)|Any CPU' nodes that are missing it:
<PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>
If this node is not present TlbImp will default to x86 and cause issues.