C# crash when loading C++ dll - c#

My program is written in C# NET 2.0,it's using external functions from a dll written in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1.
If I remove the dll from the directory the program is placed,the program crashes at the moment it should use the dll.That's normal.
But the users that are using my program get the same error at the same place without moving the dll.They all have C++ Redistributable 2008 from >here<
Does it happen because I made the program in .NET 2.0 instead of NET 3.5 or it happens ,because the redistributable should be an older version?
Edit:Note for me,the program runs fine.
>>new thread<<

Its most likely the wrong runtime. Make sure you are distributing the correct one. These will always work on your dev box because the runtimes are in the path. For testing software, I use a windows xp virtual machine. I set up the virtual machine as a completely fresh install, install the components I know that I need (.NET framework, etc.), then run my installer. You will run into a surprising number of setup issues doing this.

The C++ Redistributable that you linked to looks like it is from the original release of Visual Studio 2008. If that changes with SP1, I could see that causing the crash. Maybe there is an updated version of the redistributable that your users need to install?

There's preciously little information in your question about the actual crash which could mean any of many things. In my experience with mixing .NET and native C++, many issues can occur in the side-by-side (SxS), especially if the DLL and the .NET application were built with different versions of the compiler.
You probably need to reproduce this problem on a local machine to debug it.

Dependency Walker can be excellent for tracking down these sorts of problems. You can load a DLL into it and it will tell you if any of its dependencies are unavailable. Sometimes missing DLLs are not necessarily a problem (if you do not go down that code path), but it is so much better than guessing.

No difference in this context of using .NET 2.0 or 3.5.
Look in method where you link and export functions from C++ (if it unmanaged)
If external functions had written on managed C++, look into signing and version of dll's

Related

Copying Reference assemblies locally

I have a newbie question, say you are using Visual Studio 2012 express to compile an application, and you set ALL the reference assemblies to COPY LOCAL = TRUE it would include them in the application folder path right?, therefore installing C++ Redistributable 2012 isn't necessary anymore, is that a true statement?, or do users still need to install that(C++ Redistributable 2012 ) to be able to run the Application?.
That is not true. If you are writing a .NET application, the user will need to have the appropriate version of the .NET Framework installed in order to run the application.
But your question is confused. None of that has anything to do with the C++ Redistributable Runtime Library. That will also have to be distributed, but it is completely separate from the .NET Framework. There are three possible ways of handling that dependency:
Installing the redistributable on the user's machine
Using app-local deployment and deploying the required CRT DLLs in the same directory as your EXE
Statically linking to the CRT
Each have their advantages and disadvantages. There isn't enough information in your question about your situation to make a recommendation.

System Requirements for running CodeDom

I know that C# applications will require the .Net framework to execute on any given machine. However, I am curious, in order for CodeDom to work properly must Visual Studio also be installed on the computer the application is being run? I only ask because doesn't CodeDom use a file that is part of the VS installation when producing files?
If you know of any other system requirements I would appreciate hearing about them.
No, using CodeDOM doesn't require Visual Studio to be installed. It works fine without it.
And compiling code by yourself doesn't require VS either. All you need is the C# compiler – csc.exe. And that is part of the .Net installation. When compiling source code to an assembly, CodeDOM actually invokes csc.exe.

Developing with C# on OSX and Mono

I'm about to start a project that requires me to write c# code. The thing is, I've got a mac.
I was wondering if there are any pitfalls involved in c# development using mono on OSX 10.6
I think the page is clear that the implementation is crisp, but on the other hand I've read that people install VMWare or something like it to use Windows. I'd like to avoid that if possible.
Note
I'll be working on a team and all the
other guys have Windows machines
Thanks
Based on your comment to HiVoltRock's answer (ASP.NET development), I'd say Mono 2.10.1 and MonoDevelop will be just fine (the stable release of MonoDevelop works just fine, but for development on OS X I prefer to use the most recent version which I compile from Git).
There are some things to take into account, such as file paths (ie: if the windows devs are writing static paths such as ApplicationsInstallDirectory + "\data\templates\foo.bar"; you will run into problems as directory separators on Mac OS are forward slashes. Also if existing code is using P/Invoke or other specific Window's functionality you'll be in trouble.
Finally if your code base uses third party libraries that requires Windows this could cause you issues.
For reference our product has been designed since day one with a requirement that it runs on Mono on Linux or OS X. With that in mind we've made sure to consider everything with cross-platform execution in mind. If you're joining an existing product, the same considerations might not have been given, meaning a lot of the existing code isn't compatible with Mono.
The Mono Migration Analyser will help determine if you've got any incompatible code.
There is a bit of fud out there about developing under Mono. Our project is an MVC3 with Razor, running .NET 4 using NHibernate, StructureMap etc and there haven't been that many issues developing on a non-Windows machine.
Be aware that the .NET libraries from Microsoft and the implementations in Mono are compatible "most of the time." If you're working in a team, you may run into some headache related to these compatibility issues (also, if you're using any third party plugins to any .NET application you're writing, you may have issues as well.). If you didn't want to run a virtual machine, I'd just bootcamp into Windows. It might disrupt your flow if you're very used to the OSX UI, but if the rest of your team is using Windows, I'd do that just to avoid compatibility issues.
The biggest thing I've had developing on Mono (admittedly on Linux) was GUIs. The majority of GUI-less code will run just fine. The only thing I've had to do is catch a few different exceptions. GUIs, however, would be a whole different beast, so don't expect those to translate well at all.
I would highly recommend using windows thru vmware rather than trying to code with some unstable osx programs. It's not cool to code for hours on a mac and then realize that none of your code works on any windows machine or that the gui looks totally different than on your computer.Always choose the right tools and languages for the right problem. Besides, visual studio is pretty nice to work with most of the time.
I've come across odd cases of memory leaks and segfaults with code compiled on Windows and dropped onto a Mono Linbox as-is. I've also had issues compiling .csproj files with xbuild that had some MS quirk that xbuild wasn't familiar with.
If I'm not mistaken, the two compilers do slightly different things at times, which are related to subtle implementation differences in the runtimes. This is most likely the cause of the segfaults and memory leaks I've come across.
My bottom line is, compile on the same platform as the runtime. So for local testing, you should be fine (you compile on mono on your mac and run/test with mono on your mac). But don't build the project on your mac and then release the resulting Mono binaries to Windows servers running MS .NET runtime (or vice versa). If you have a build server best would be to stick to that (which we all should do anyway... right?).
If your team doesn't have a build process and you must build the binaries you are going to release, I would use a Windows VM for that final step.

What C++ packages do i need to run a program?

I created a C# application that uses a C++ dll and im trying to create an install package that will allow this to run on other computers whether they have VS or not, the problem is i don't know what C++ libraries i need to let it do this. When i run just the application on a blank virtual machine it says
" xxxx has encountered a problem and needs to close."
If i go and download visual studio 2008 express version and install it on the machine, the my program will run fine. problem is express is 85-185mb to download and 335mb up to 1.1gb to install on a machine, the program that is using it is only 33kb. huge overhead there...
if i install just the C++ redistributable from msdn site, it takes up 4mb, but it wont let me run my program.
what packages from C++ do i need to make this program run on a blanked computer?
That question can be tough to answer. If you have the source of the c++ dll you should be able to see its dependencies unless the person used a lot of com or load library calls. One of the best tools I used to get c++ depencany info was depends.exe. One thing to check if its your code is that you are not using debug version with dependencies on debug dll that I think are not in the redistributable.
caleb, I recommend you a program called Dependency Walker. It will show you all the dll dependencies you have. I'm sure there are much more of them for Windows but that's the one I've been using for quite a while and I like it. So you did right by downloading the redistributable package from the MS web site but your app probably depends on some other libraries. When I tried to build my installer long time ago using Visual Studio I remember it was a way to include a redistributable package in your installer or use side-by-side installation - depending whether the license agreement of your Visual Studio version allowed you to do that or not. Also you could include all the dll dependencies you have in the installer.
Hope that helps
The C++ runtime dlls you need are the ones provided with the compiler as redistributable package and exactly this one! Other redist packages won't necessary work because of the manifests embedded in the executables which require an exact version (checked by a hash value of the binaries in the side by side assembly directory C:\Windows\SxS)
So you are right with the redistributable but you need the one that was installed with the compiler not one from a best guess from the internet. The exact versions can be looked at in the manifest files (XML)

How to export all the dependent DLL files automatically

I used C# to write a program in .NET Framework 3.5.
But when I finished that and moved it to another computer on which .NET Framework 3.5 was installed, the program couldn't be started. It missed some dependent DLL files.
But when I moved this program to a computer that had Visual Studio 2008 installed, it ran perfectly.
So what can I do to export all the dependent DLL files automatically? So my program can run on a computer without installing Visual Studio 2008?
Actually you just need to include the third party component that your project use.
Edit:
To know them you need go to references and check the Added DLL.
Edit2:
Did you try to make a setup for your project it will automatically collect all the library used in your applications?
another point is, are you using win32 libraries, if yes also you should include them?

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