Download or generate msvcp71.dll?

Question

I wrote a large and complex C application on Windows XP. Now I am recompiling on a 64bit Windows 7 machine. When I run certain executables I get this error:

The program cannot start because MSVCP71.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix the problem.

Apparently this is a .dll that used to come with windows but now does not (see especially this MSDN forum and this previous stack overflow question.)

Supposedly I should generate this DLL from Microsoft Visual C++ and "extract the DLLs from the merge modules." However, I am using gcc, mingw and make and I would prefer to avoid going to Visual Studio.

There are lots of copies of this dll available to download from unverified sources on the internet, but none directly downloadable from Microsoft. What should I do? Do I need to install Microsoft Visual C++? Is there any way to do this with gcc and mingw?

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Update: @Sheng Jiang 蒋晟's hint was crucial. What I hadn't realized was that my dependency on MSVCP71.dll only arises out of linking to a third party DLL. I was able to identify the third party DLL and find a copy of MSVCP71.dll running on another system with that DLL in place. Now I can include the MSVCP711.dll along with the third party DLL and everything runs smoothly.

Answer 1

There is no downloadable redistributable released for this file. Only merge modules are provided on the CDs. Programmers are expected to embed those merge modules into their setup programs, or extract the files into their program's install folder. This file is not intended for System32 as that is a violation of Windows Logo requirement.

Since you are not using the Visual C++ tool chain, the MS-STL dependency comes with a third-party component whose author did not provide a proper setup program. Although you can get the dll from other products, however, you need a product that explicitly grant you the redistribute rights to be able to redistribute the file to your customers. Such redistribute rights come with Visual C++ 2003 and probably InstallShield X and other install package authoring software.

For evaluate proposes you can obtain the file for the component from other products that have a dependency on the file, such as SQL Server 2005, the .Net 1.1 runtime or its SDK, Crystal Report 10 etc. Beware of version mismatch. If the component requires SP1 or later edition of MSVCP71.dll, it may not work with the RTM edition.