Building and deploying dll on windows: SxS, manifests and all that jazz

Question

Since VS 2005, I see that it is not possible to simply build a dll against MS runtime and deploy them together (http://www.ddj.com/windows/184406482). I am deeply confused by manifest, SxS and co: MSDN documentation is really poor, with circular references; specially since I am more a Unix guy, I find all those uninformative. My core problem is linking a dll against msvc9 or msvc8: since those runtime are not redistributable, what are the steps to link and deploy such a dll ? In particular, how are the manifest generated (I don't want mt.exe, I want something which is portable across compilers), how are they embedded, used ? What does Side by side assembly mean ?

Basically, where can I find any kind of specification instead of MS jargon ?

Thank you to everyone who answered, this was really helpful,

Answer 1

We use a simple include file in all our applications & DLL's, vcmanifest.h, then set all projects to embedded the manifest file.

vcmanifest.h

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

#if _MSC_VER >= 1400

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

#pragma message ( "Setting up manifest..." )

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

#ifndef _CRT_ASSEMBLY_VERSION
#include <crtassem.h>
#endif 

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

#ifdef WIN64
    #pragma message ( "processorArchitecture=amd64" )
    #define MF_PROCESSORARCHITECTURE "amd64"
#else
    #pragma message ( "processorArchitecture=x86" )
    #define MF_PROCESSORARCHITECTURE "x86"
#endif 

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

#pragma message ( "Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls=6.0.0.0") 
#pragma comment ( linker,"/manifestdependency:\"type='win32' " \
                  "name='Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls' " \
                  "version='6.0.0.0' " \
                  "processorArchitecture='" MF_PROCESSORARCHITECTURE "' " \
                  "publicKeyToken='6595b64144ccf1df'\"" )

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

#ifdef _DEBUG
    #pragma message ( __LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX ".DebugCRT=" _CRT_ASSEMBLY_VERSION ) 
    #pragma comment(linker,"/manifestdependency:\"type='win32' "            \
            "name='" __LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX ".DebugCRT' "         \
            "version='" _CRT_ASSEMBLY_VERSION "' "                          \
            "processorArchitecture='" MF_PROCESSORARCHITECTURE "' "         \
            "publicKeyToken='" _VC_ASSEMBLY_PUBLICKEYTOKEN "'\"")
#else
    #pragma message ( __LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX ".CRT=" _CRT_ASSEMBLY_VERSION ) 
    #pragma comment(linker,"/manifestdependency:\"type='win32' "            \
            "name='" __LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX ".CRT' "              \
            "version='" _CRT_ASSEMBLY_VERSION "' "                          \
            "processorArchitecture='" MF_PROCESSORARCHITECTURE "' "         \
            "publicKeyToken='" _VC_ASSEMBLY_PUBLICKEYTOKEN "'\"")
#endif

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

#ifdef _MFC_ASSEMBLY_VERSION
    #ifdef _DEBUG
        #pragma message ( __LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX ".MFC=" _CRT_ASSEMBLY_VERSION ) 
        #pragma comment(linker,"/manifestdependency:\"type='win32' "            \
                "name='" __LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX ".MFC' "              \
                "version='" _MFC_ASSEMBLY_VERSION "' "                          \
                "processorArchitecture='" MF_PROCESSORARCHITECTURE "' "         \
                "publicKeyToken='" _VC_ASSEMBLY_PUBLICKEYTOKEN "'\"")
    #else
        #pragma message ( __LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX ".MFC=" _CRT_ASSEMBLY_VERSION ) 
        #pragma comment(linker,"/manifestdependency:\"type='win32' "            \
                "name='" __LIBRARIES_ASSEMBLY_NAME_PREFIX ".MFC' "              \
                "version='" _MFC_ASSEMBLY_VERSION "' "                          \
                "processorArchitecture='" MF_PROCESSORARCHITECTURE "' "         \
                "publicKeyToken='" _VC_ASSEMBLY_PUBLICKEYTOKEN "'\"")
    #endif
#endif /* _MFC_ASSEMBLY_VERSION */

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

#endif /* _MSC_VER */

/*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

Answer 2

Here is the blog entry explaining the rational behind the SxS crt decision for VC++. It includes explaining how bad it is to statically link the crt, and why you shouldn't do that.

Here is the documentation on how to statically link the crt.