Difference between *.a and *.dll on Windows

Question

What is the difference between *.a and *.dll on Windows? From what I understand one can package all the *.o files into a *.a, which is a distributable that other application can use, on Linux.

But what are the difference between *.a and *.dll? Are they interchangeable? If my application needs to link to *.a, can I link it to *.dll as a substitute?

Answer 1

Aside: There is no defined *.a format with plain Windows development tools, unless you use a Linux-based tool chain. You're presumably referring to a static library, aka .lib in Windows.

A DLL is the equivalent of a shared library (*.so) on Unix and no, you normally can't link to a shared library/dll if the linker expects you to link against a static library.