Problems with running EXE file built with Visual Studio on another computer

Question

I created a client server application in C++ using Visual Studio.

Now I want to run the client EXE file on another computer (which doesn't have Visual Studio installed), but when I try run the EXE file, it gives the following error message:

This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

How can I run the EXE file without installing anything on the computer?

Answer 1

Applications built with Visual Studio depend on Visual C++ Redistibutable (VCRedist). When the program is being linked dynamically, then your binaries will need MSVCR**.dll (Microsoft C Runtime Library).

On MSDN, there is a nice article called Redistributing Visual C++ Files (for Visual Studio 2008), that states that there are Potential run-time errors in case that required Visual C++ library is not installed:

you may get one of the following error messages depending on the version of Windows on which you try to run your application:

• The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135).
• This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling application may fix this problem.
• The system cannot execute the specified program.

Basically you have two options:

• The simplest possible solution is to change the dynamic linking of runtime libraries to static linking. Go to project properties and under C/C++ → Code Generation you will find Runtime Library option. You need to change it from Multi-threaded DLL (/MD) to Multi-threaded (/MT).
• Another possible solution is to make sure that the right version of Microsoft VC++ Redistributable Package is installed on the target machine.

But your application might depend on other DLL files as well. In case you want to find out what are the dependencies of your program, there is a great utility called Dependency Walker that will help you in this and many other situations :)

Answer 2

Background:

• C++ applications need run-time assemblies (DLL files) to run in any Windows computer.
• Normally these run-time assemblies are located at C:\Windows\Winsxs directory.
• All the Windows operating systems by default comes with several run time assemblies.
• But if your application is developed in a newer version of the run-time assembly environment, the target computer also needs the same version of the run time to exist there.
• When you're installing Visual Studio, most newer versions of the run-time assemblies comes to your computer.

Solution:

Finally by anyway the target computer should have the exact run time assemblies. There are a few ways to do this (for more details search each in Google).

1. Statically link run-time assemblies with your application (troublesome for large application).
2. Install the C++ redistribution environment on the target computer (the easiest way).
3. Creating a setup project to deploy the run-time on the target computer when installing the application (not bad).
4. For deploying run-time assemblies as private assemblies (professional), see here for more details

Conditions:

• You must not use .NET framework in your application.
• You must not use the common language run-time support for your application