"The application was unable to start correctly" after including vld.h

Question

I included vld.h, vld.lib and vld_x86.dll on my Win32 project with visual studio 2010. It builds properly but when I execute, it crashes with this message:

"The application was unable  to start correctly (0xc0150002). Click OK to close the application."

I run it with Dependency Walker but it shows side by side error as follows:

Error: The Side-by-Side configuration information for "D:\project\..\debug\VLD_X86.DLL" contains errors. The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect.)

I have tried various ways including tinkering around with the manifest as suggested here:

https://vld.codeplex.com/discussions/360243

It only runs properly if I commented the following line on vld.h

// Force a symbolic reference to the global VisualLeakDetector class object from
// the DLL. This ensures that the DLL is loaded and linked with the program,
// even if no code otherwise imports any of the DLL's exports.
//#pragma comment(linker, "/include:__imp_?g_vld@@3VVisualLeakDetector@@A")

However, if I commented out that line, the vld doesn't output anything at all (just like no vld integration)

Anyone having this problem before? Any suggestions will be appreciated, thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I had this problem too, you need to add all these files to the same directory as your vld_x86.dll/vl_x64.dll:

Microsoft.DTfW.DHL.manifest

dbghelp.dll

Which came from the Win32/Win64 bin folder from Visual Leak Detector. Found this from: https://vld.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Building%20Visual%20Leak%20Detector%20from%20Source

Answer 2

I had this problem (this error message), too. In my case the vld_x86.dll, most likely in another than the expected version, was preinstalled and registered by some other software. (everybody likes VLD, it seems) Thus, it was loaded instead of the vld_x86.dll in the path VLD was built to. Unregistering the foreign DLL solved the problem.

Hence, you might want to check the output for loading of DLLs from exotic paths.