How to avoid msvcr100.dll dependency when manipulating files?

Question

I am writing a custom installer launcher in C which opens, reads and writes files. I use fopen() to open the files. This works perfectly on Linux and the binary does not depend on libstdc++.so but on Windows in Visual Studio 2010 I get a dependency on MSVCR100.DLL. If I add the /NODEFAULTLIB flag the linker fails.

I need this program to be free of the MSVCR100.DLL dependency since it launches an installer which at a later stage installs the VC++ 2010 Redistributable and at the time of the launch it is not sure if the host machine has this library.

How can I manipulate files in VS without MSVCR100.DLL?

Answer 1

You get the dependency to msvcr100.dll (and probably msvcp100.dll) because your project settings define this. You should use static linking instead of dynamic linking of the runtime library.

Change your C/C++ code generation settings: Runtime Library. Select an option without DLL.

Answer 2

Alternatively, if you can change your code a bit, you can use the Win32 API (CreateFile, ReadFile...). This will link to kernel32.dll, which is always available.