Gabled characters produced by Visual Studio 2022

Jae Young Lee 0

Recently, I started working for migration of my software from Visual Studio 2008 to 2022.

After a lot of difficulties with the new IDE, I succeeded in generating the .exe files without errors, one for "Release" version and the other for "Debug" version.

If I try to launch the program by double clicking the .exe file icon, the "Release" version fails with a message "The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000007b)..."

The "Debug" version runs, but produces unrecognizable (garbled) strings as shown below.

I will appreciate it very much if anyone gives me the tips.

User's image

       VS 2022                                 VS 2008

Jae Young Lee 0 Reputation points

2023-01-16T03:14:09.0666667+00:00

Gabled --> Garbled
RLWA32 40,286 Reputation points

2023-01-16T11:10:53.7766667+00:00

The 0xC000007B error on startup can often be cause by mismatched executables and dependent DLLs. For example, at load-time a 32-bit application tries to load a 64-bit DLL or a 64-bit application tries to load a 32-bit DLL.

How are you creating the menu that contains garbled text. This kind of garbled display is often caused by improperly casting narrow strings (char) as unicode strings (wchar_t) and passing them to functions that expect unicode string input.
Jae Young Lee 0 Reputation points

2023-01-16T12:44:12.8366667+00:00

Thank you for the valuable information. My 64-bit application loads only 64 bit DLLs, and worked fine when generated by Visual Studio 2008. Is there any DLL incorporated automatically by Visual Studio 2022?
RLWA32 40,286 Reputation points

2023-01-16T13:03:00.2033333+00:00
Visual Studio uses individual properties for C++ projects for the various combinations of Platform/Configuration. It's possible that you aren't only creating 64-bit binaries. I suggest you verify the bitness of your binaries by using the Dumpbin command.

In a Visual Studio command prompt window use the command -

dumpbin /headers your.exe

and

dumpbin /headers your.dll

Example output for 64-bit and 32-bit dlls with the same name -
Jae Young Lee 0 Reputation points

2023-01-17T12:13:10.3966667+00:00

Thank you for your kind advice.

Two DLLs are used by my application: libxl.dll (Exel interface) and libguide40.dll (sparse matrix solver). I confirmed that both of them are 64 bit versions. As mentioned in my previous comment, the exe files built by "Release" and "Debug" configurations show different results. "Debug" version is represented by a correct icon image, while "Release" version is not represented by a correct icon image as shown in the figure below.

"Debug" version runs normally, but "Release" version gives error message "0xc0000007b"

I put each of "Debug" and "Release" versions alternately in the same folder with the above mentioned two DLL files. Then, "Debug" version works, but "Release" version gives the error message.
RLWA32 40,286 Reputation points

2023-01-17T12:23:49.2933333+00:00

Have you also confirmed that the Release version of Solver.exe is 64-bit?

If you open the release version of Solver.exe in Visual Studio as a file can you see the correct icon in the displayed resources?
Jae Young Lee 0 Reputation points

2023-01-18T08:16:11.1166667+00:00

Thanks again. I compared "dumpbin" results of "Release" and "Debug" versions. I attached the first header value part and the last summary part below.

It will be very helpful for me if you can give any diagnosis about the two versions from the comparison.
RLWA32 40,286 Reputation points

2023-01-18T10:09:57.9833333+00:00
Another possibility that can cause the 0xC000007B error is a bitness mismatch between a DLL and any dependent DLLs. For example, if GarbleLib.dll depends on GarbleLib2.dll then both must be 64-bit DLLs. If the loader finds a 32-bit version of GarbleLib2.dll when attempting to start the .exe file then 0xC000007B will result.

You can also use dumpbin to identify the dependent libraries for a DLL by running

dumpbin /dependents your.dll

When you examine the output you should only be concerned with verifying the bitness of non-system DLLs that are identified as dependencies. For example, you needn't be concerned with items like kernel32.dll, user32.dll, ucrtbase.dll and api set items.

I still think you should open your problematic solver.exe as a file in Visual Studio to examine its resources. The following images show how the resources for icons used for an .exe would be displayed and how that display relates back to the sources used to create the executable

Finally, the .rsrc section relates to how resources are stored in PE format binary (i.e., an exe or dll) and the .msvcjmc section is related to the use of the "Just My Code" option for a debug build.
RLWA32 40,286 Reputation points

2023-01-21T12:52:31.0233333+00:00

Just checking if there are any updates about resolving the icon mystery. :)
Jae Young Lee 0 Reputation points

2023-01-21T15:08:46.8866667+00:00

Thanks!

Based on your advice, I checked all the static libraries included in the projects. I found there was some conflict between two of them. I resolved it. And, at last, I succeeded launching the application built under "Release" mode as well. (The icon does not still appears as before). The program runs, but fails to open the popup dialog boxes. It seems not able to accept the dialog scripts at all, although they were compiled with no errors.

The project works perfectly under "Debug" mode. (No problems with the icon, dialog boxes and functionality.) But, it does not work under "Release" mode.

I cannot understand the reason why.

I hope you may show me the direction for further progress.
RLWA32 40,286 Reputation points

2023-01-21T16:29:50.0133333+00:00

At this point I think you will need to share your solution/project and related source with us so we can build on our own systems, if possible. At a minimum seeing the project settings and the sources would be helpful.

Without better information I can't tell you why your release build fails to open dialog boxes.
Jae Young Lee 0 Reputation points

2023-01-25T13:28:12.2433333+00:00

I finally resolved the problem by changing a property item of the project. The dialog scripts of popup dialog boxes and the program icon are now represented properly after changing the property item, Resources->General as shown below.

I wonder why Visual Studio 2022 requires such settings. It was more intuitive in Visual Studio 2008, which I used before.

Thank you for your help an patience.

2 answers

Anna Xiu-MSFT 25,551 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-01-16T09:30:49.5933333+00:00

Hi @Jae Young Lee ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

What project did you generate .exe files from?

Please try to run it as administrator and check if it is added to system environment variables.

Sincerely,

Anna

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Jae Young Lee 0 Reputation points

2023-01-16T10:39:08.4366667+00:00

Thank you for your kind reply.

Both "Release" and "Debug" projects generated .exe file. The "Debug" project generate .exe file with the correct icon, and runs. But the "Release" project produces .exe file with wrong(probably default) icon. I tried with various settings of the project "Properties." But the "Release" project does not produces a working .exe. I tried to run it as administrator, but does not make any difference.
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Jae Young Lee 0 Reputation points

2023-01-16T10:26:37.2266667+00:00
The above mentioned problem was resolved by setting the properties of the project as follows:

"Project" -> "Properties" menu item

Property Pages "Configuration Properties" -> "Advanced" pane

Character Set -> Use Multi-Byte Character Set Whole Program Optimization -> Use Link Time Code Generation It is the case of "Debug" version. However, the "Release" version still does not work.
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