Unresolved external symbols __RTC_* in Windows programming tutorial

Question

Using Visual Studio Express 2010 I made a Windows project with the options Windows Application and Empty Project. I then tried the following code snippet from the MSDN Windows tutorials:

#include <windows.h>
#include <shobjidl.h> 

int WINAPI wWinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE, PWSTR pCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
    HRESULT hr = CoInitializeEx(NULL, COINIT_APARTMENTTHREADED | 
        COINIT_DISABLE_OLE1DDE);
    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
    {
        IFileOpenDialog *pFileOpen;

        // Create the FileOpenDialog object.
        hr = CoCreateInstance(CLSID_FileOpenDialog, NULL, CLSCTX_ALL, 
                IID_IFileOpenDialog, reinterpret_cast<void**>(&pFileOpen));

        if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
        {
            // Show the Open dialog box.
            hr = pFileOpen->Show(NULL);

            // Get the file name from the dialog box.
            if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
            {
                IShellItem *pItem;
                hr = pFileOpen->GetResult(&pItem);
                if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
                {
                    PWSTR pszFilePath;
                    hr = pItem->GetDisplayName(SIGDN_FILESYSPATH, &pszFilePath);

                    // Display the file name to the user.
                    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
                    {
                        MessageBox(NULL, pszFilePath, L"File Path", MB_OK);
                        CoTaskMemFree(pszFilePath);
                    }
                    pItem->Release();
                }
            }
            pFileOpen->Release();
        }
        CoUninitialize();
    }
    return 0;
}

I got the following errors:

1>------ Rebuild All started: Project: Test05, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------
1>  Test05.cpp
1>Test05.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol @_RTC_CheckStackVars@8 
referenced in function _wWinMain@16
1>Test05.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol __RTC_CheckEsp referenced in 
function _wWinMain@16
1>Test05.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol __RTC_Shutdown 
1>Test05.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol __RTC_InitBase
1>LINK : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _wWinMainCRTStartup

What's going on here? Best I can tell something to do with wWinMain, but it is copied directly from the site.

Compilers seem to be far more trouble for me than learning programming. I decided on Visual C++ after trying a few others (codeblocks mostly), but since Visual C++ seems to have the most support (or at least the majority of users) I figured it was better than never getting anywhere since they all are so unintuitive to a beginner.

Answer 1

The _RTC_xxx symbols are added when the 'Basic Runtime Checks' are used; to disable them, you can go on the project properties, and set the Configuration Properties>C/C++>All Options>Basic Runtime Checks option to 'Default'. Though, as mentioned in the other answers, it looks like you have a mismatch in the C-Runtime libraries.