How do I find out which dlls an executable will load?

Question

If I have a Windows executable, how can I find out which dlls it will load?

I'm just talking about which ones that will be loaded statically, not ones it might load dynamically with something like LoadLibrary.

Answer 1

dumpbin is a tool that comes with VC++.

To see what DLLs a program will import:

• Open Visual Studio
• Menu Item Tools | Visual Studio Command prompt
• cd to folder containing executable
• dumpbin /dependents whatever.exe

Dump of file whatever.exe  File Type: EXECUTABLE IMAGE    Image has the following dependencies:      AIOUSB.DLL     sqlite3.dll     wxmsw293u_core_vc_custom.dll     wxbase293u_vc_custom.dll     KERNEL32.dll     ole32.dll     OLEAUT32.dll     MSVCP90.dll     MSVCR90.dll 

To see what functions (and DLLs) it will import, use

C:\> dumpbin /imports whatever.exe 

Answer 2

There are utilities that will do this for you.

In the past I've used the MS tool (depends.exe) that came with (I think) VB.:
VS2010 VS2012 VS2013 VS2015 Current

and there's this as well:
http://dependencywalker.com/

and probably others as well.

Answer 3

Open the command prompt and then type below command

tasklist /m /fi "imagename eq netbeans.exe"

Type instead netbeans.exe whatever name your exe file name.

Answer 4

Dependency Walker can help you determine which .dll will be loaded.

Answer 5

Just go to the command prompt and type tasklist /m, you will see the list of dll files used by specific program.

Answer 6

Solution for Microsoft .Net:

foreach (AssemblyName a in Assembly.ReflectionOnlyLoadFrom("SAMPLE.EXE").GetReferencedAssemblies()) 
{
    MessageBox.Show(a.Name); 
}

Answer 7

There is a handy tool called NDepend that will give you all DLL dependencies.