VS2010 - C++ EXE size reduction, how?

[Mike Stefanik]

As long as you're static linking to the runtime libraries, that shouldn't be the case. Have you checked your project settings? Project > Properties > Configuration Properties > C/C++ > Code Generation > Runtime Library

It should be set to Multi-threaded (/MT) for a release build and Multi-threaded Debug (/MTd) for a debug build for all your projects. If it's set to /MD or /MDd then you're using the shared CRT DLLs. You also need to make sure that any other libraries that you're statically linking to were not built using /MD (although if that's the case, you should be getting linker errors since you can't mix /MT and /MD compiled code together).

[Patrice Terrier]

Mike--

Both WinLIFT.dll and GDImage.dll are set to DLL multithread (/MD)

and my demo project HUDplus.exe using them, is set to Multithread (/MT)

[Mike Stefanik]

Every project should be set to /MT (or /MTd for debugging) and your redistribution issue is solved. There will be no external dependency on the C or C++ runtime libraries. You will note, however, that the size of your DLLs will increase as a result.

By the way, the reason that you can mix /MT while linking to your /MD compiled DLLs is because of just that, they're DLLs. Where you can't mix the two is when linking to multiple static libraries compiled in different modes; linking to an import library is a different sort of animal.

Edit: Just in case you were confused, the "DLL Multi-threaded" setting is not telling the compiler that you're creating a DLL. It's telling it that you want to dynamically link to the C/C++ runtimes (DLLs). Even for your own DLLs, you should be using /MT and not /MD to avoid having to redistribute the runtime DLLs.

[Kev Peel]

Try Dependency Walker to find out what the dependencies are.

You could also try creating another Win32 DLL project with a simple libmain() function in a single .C extension source file and check the output is not the same.

Also ensure you are looking at the correct output DLL - should be "release" configuration.

The runtime DLLs are definitely not required for every configuration!

[Brice Manuel]

Edit: Just in case you were confused, the "DLL Multi-threaded" setting is not telling the compiler that you're creating a DLL. It's telling it that you want to dynamically link to the C/C++ runtimes (DLLs). Even for your own DLLs, you should be using /MT and not /MD to avoid having to redistribute the runtime DLLs.

Thank you for this tip.

[Patrice Terrier]

Here is the final size result after applying the Multithread (/MT) switch.

            |   PB 9.05 | C++ 32-bit | C++ 64-bit |
GDImage.dll |    353 Kb |     334 Kb |     403 Kb |
            |           |            |            |
            |  PB 10.04 | C++ 32-bit | C++ 64-bit |
WinLIFT.dll |    217 Kb |     293 Kb |     341 Kb |

About PowerBASIC, using PB 10.04 instead of PB 9.05 to compile the same code, adds an extra 20 Kb to the resulting size.

The difference between the /MD and /MT switches adds an extra 90 Kb to my C++ code, not that much if i get free of the whole run-time.