Building and deploying dll on windows: SxS, manifests and all that jazz

Question

Since VS 2005, I see that it is not possible to simply build a dll against MS runtime and deploy them together (http://www.ddj.com/windows/184406482). I am deeply confused by ma

Answer 1

Well, I've encountered some of these issues, so perhaps some of my comments will be helpful.

1. The manifest is an xml file. While VS can and will make one for you when you compile, the other solution is to produce a resource file (.rc) and compile it into a compiled resource file (.res) using the resource compiler (rc.exe) included with VS. You'll want to run the VS commandline from the tools menu, which will cause rc to be in the path, as well as setting various environmental variables correctly. Then compile your resource. The resulting .res file can be used by other compilers.
2. Make sure your manifest xml file's size is divisible by 4. Add whitespace in the middle of it to achieve this if needed. Try to avoid having any characters before the openning xml tag or after the closing xml tag. I've sometimes had issues with this. If you do step 2 incorrectly, expect to get side by side configuration errors. You can check if that is your mistake by openning the exe in a resource editor (e.g. devenv.exe) and examining the manifest resource. You can also see an example of a correct manifest by just opening a built file, though note that dlls and exes have tiny differences in what id the resource should be given.

You'll probably want to test on Vista to make sure this is working properly.