Visual Studio C++ - How to avoid Visual C++ Redistributable Packages? [duplicate]

Question

When I run my program on a freshly installed computer, it tells me that Visual C++ Redistributable Package 2015 (namely, MSVCP140.dll) needs to be installed on the computer in order to run my dynamically linked program.

I understand that static linking would solve the problem - however, that just doubles the size of my executable.

Isn't there a way to suppress visual studio features so the redist package is not necessary and still use the visual studio compiler, as I'm not used to the alternatives like mingw etc.

Or does the redist package actually contain the STL? I can hardly imagine that.

Answer 1

AFAIK you only have 2 options : 1. static linking - no dll dependency, but huge size 2. dynamic linking - you need correspond dlls , relativelly small executables.

As for #2 you also have 2 options :

1. install redist as standalone package
2. put this dll's in same directory with exe . It's "legal" from MS stand point. (privat assembly ?)

Hope it helps .