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Hello,
I'm newby in C++ and Windows Installer technologies. I have implemeted Windows Installer(msi) package with a custom action which is running during one of steps with push button control. That custom action will download and run downloaded msi to install Visual Studio. The Custom Action invokes DLL which I created with C++ and Visual Studio. There are also other functions from DLL which are being run by this package.
The problem is that when I have the VS installed on my PC, the MSI is working excellent and all requred DLL functions are working as expected. But when I uninstall VS and try to install it with my MSI, there is error as in the header above.
Any ideas how to fix it?
Thanks
Does your custom action dll have any dependencies that are not present on a target system without a visual studio installation?
I have these includes in my .cpp
#include "pch.h"
#include "UEDevDep.h"
#include "UtilityFuncs.h"
#include <chrono>
#include <thread>
#include <sstream>
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <Windows.h>
#include <msi.h>
#include <Msiquery.h>
#include <combaseapi.h>
#include <roapi.h>
#include <codecvt>
#pragma comment(lib, "msi.lib")
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Well, I suspect the issue is happening because VS has some libraries I'm using in my DLL. But how to identify which one is needed?
In a Developer Command Prompt window run Dumpbin /dependents your.dll and post the output so we can see it.
Also, make sure that you are not building debug versions of your custom action dll.
Another thing you can do is link to the static CRT to eliminate some dependencies.
Yes, it is Release. I'm not sure yet what you mean by static CRT. But I will try to google this question.
Please see the output
c:\wix\project>Dumpbin /dependents UEDevDep.dll
Microsoft (R) COFF/PE Dumper Version 14.34.31947.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Dump of file UEDevDep.dll
File Type: DLL
Image has the following dependencies:
KERNEL32.dll
ADVAPI32.dll
msi.dll
MSVCP140.dll
urlmon.dll
VCRUNTIME140_1.dll
VCRUNTIME140.dll
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-convert-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-filesystem-l1-1-0.dll
Summary
1000 .data
1000 .pdata
7000 .rdata
1000 .reloc
1000 .rsrc
D000 .text
I tried to install Windows SDK alone, but it is still the same issue
Looks like static linking helped me. I've managed to invoke some little functions from my DLL but there are more which require more time for testing. I will let you know if it is ok. Thank you so much!
Just to sum up - one more question. Am I correct that static linking will gather all required dependencies/DLLs and pack them into my target DLL during compilation?
static linking will gather all required dependencies/DLLs and pack them into my target DLL during compilation
Close, but not quite. It means that for the UCRT and VC++ runtime libraries what would previously have been used from those dependent DLLs will now be linked (not compiled) into your own DLL. Another way to look at it is that your DLL will contain its own private copy of the runtime libs.
I confirm, it's working as I expected now. Thanks again
Glad to help. I have converted an earlier comment to an answer that you can accept to close the question.
If you link with the CRT static libs you will remove dependencies on the VC++ runtime dlls which are probably not installed on your target system.
In the DLL project property page set the /MT option for the release configuration as shown below -