Check if DLL uses SSE instructions

Question

I am cross-compiling a C++ application with Visual Studio 2012 Express on Windows 7 (target platform = Windows XP Embedded). The target CPU does not support SSE or SSE2 instructions. I therefore would like to be able to double-check that the DLLs and EXEs that I build do not use any SSE or SSE2 instructions. How can I do this?

Answer 1

This is how you can do it quick and dirty:

1. Run Visual Studio command prompt
2. Call dumpbin /disasm required.dll > dll_disasm.asm
3. Look for common SSE/SSE2 instructions, e.g. movss, xmm0 or xmm1

If no SSE instruction/registers found in DLL, you're good unless the DLL loads something else.