Win32 tidy.exe v5.4.0 binary build missing DLL file

[AlbertWiersch]

I get messages about VCRUNTIME140.dll missing when I run tidy.exe v5.4.0 on some Windows systems.

[geoffmcl]

@AlbertWiersch well it will fail to run on all Windows systems that do not have the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 installed.

You need to match the vc_redit.[x64|x86]. depending whether you are using the 64 or 32 bit exe, resp.

Of course they will also be installed if you install Visual Studio 2015 (msvc140)...

Since these components are a free download from Microsoft, we do not include them in the distribution package...

Advise if you have any trouble... thanks...

[AlbertWiersch]

Can you build the EXE so that it does not require that DLL? I don't recall ever having any missing DLL issues with the 5.2.0 build. For example, build the exe without linking dynamically to Visual C++ libraries?

[geoffmcl]

@AlbertWiersch yes we could... but that gets us into a lot of messy zip/exe naming conventions...

Like I could build a Windows EXE with say MSVC10, but that still needs the vc10 re-dist dlls... I would have to check back, but maybe the 5.2.0 build used that...

And could maybe build using a static version of some of these DLLs... that is using /MT versus /MD... Maybe that is worth exploring...

We could also build with say MinGW and MinGW-x64, which avoids the later MSVC DLLs... and there are other Windows build systems that can be used... but who is going to take over, and supply these each release time...

It's also possible to generate a Windows msi installer, which would probably include such dlls... will check this... but this installs in C:\Program Files\tidy by default...

But the easiest way is for you to clone the source and build it yourself... You only need some minimum build tools, depending on the make files you ask CMake to generate for you... cmake -help will list all the generators it supports... quite a list..

Lots of food for thought here... will explore... thanks...

HTH

[geoffmcl]

Ok, some parts of the puzzle solved ;=))

Tidy.exe, 5.2.0, 64-bit, has a dependence on msvc100, MSVCR100.dll to be exact... Tidy.exe, 5.4.0, 64-bit, has a dependence on VCRUNTIME140.dll, plus a dozen or so others... MS is certainly making it harder to distribute binaries...

The msi package failed to build for 5.5.10, the latest in next branch... not sure what is going wrong... I can still build the Windows installer EXE, but it does not include the dependent run-time DLLs... so adds nothing at this time...

I note a recent GeographicLib 1.47 installed the VCRUNTIME140.dll, and some others... need to look at what they did in CMakeLists.txt to get this to happen... in my case I would like to understand, and maybe undo it...

Still to explore some other options...

[AlbertWiersch]

It seems really strange that an statically linked tidy.exe file can't be made with a compiler/linker setting adjustment to eliminate the dependencies on DLLs. Is this possible? Are you sure it can't be linked statically? If not then I may just go back to distributing 5.2.0 if not, at least for the time being.

Or maybe redistribute the needed DLLs if I have to... it seems it is allowed:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35097193/can-i-bundle-the-visual-studio-2015-c-redistributable-dlls-with-my-applicatio

But I'd much rather have a simple statically linked EXE file and not have to worry about DLLs.

[geoffmcl]

@AlbertWiersch just about of time tonight, but I have experimented with CPack, and have been able to included the MSVC DLLs in the zip... but this was just in a test package...

I was also able to build both the msi and Windows exe installer, but still to check if the DLLs were included...

If I can then move this additional CPack stuff into Tidy's CMakeLists.txt, and build these there, I could certainly add them to our binary distribution...

And as stated, still to find time to experiment with using the static link to some of these system libraries, to see what DLL dependence is removed...

Tidy.exe already links with the tidys.lib - the static library - removing the need for the Tidy.dll...

Will do some of that over the coming days... hang in there... thanks...

[AlbertWiersch]

Thank you. I hope you are able to get everything statically linked so I can just distribute tidy.exe like I could with 5.2.0. I'm distributing the 32-bit version, by the way... because that runs on more systems.

[geoffmcl]

ok, have built a zip, tidy-5.5.10-win32.zip, which contains the system runtime DLLs... could publish it shortly, if I need to...

Have published the CMake/CPack source changes to the cpack-test branch...

But meantime have uploaded - http://geoffair.org/tmp/tidy-5.5.10-win32.zip - (SHA1 ACEDEA2280AF62B81B560A4A2BBA63962BB3F121) ...

If you could download that zip, and test, that would be a great help... thanks...

[AlbertWiersch]

Thank you. I will test tomorrow. Are you still experimenting with a static link to avoid the need for any and all DLLs?

[AlbertWiersch]

OK. I tried it on the computer that it didn't work on and it came up with a message about another missing DLL. I think the only way to make this work well is to statically link everything. I don't want to distribute a bunch of extra DLL's with tidy.exe and I didn't have to with the 5.2.0 binary... so there must be way to get this to work without extra DLLs. I think I will go back to 5.2.0 until this is resolved.

UPDATE: 5.2.0 (32-bit) didn't work on my old Windows 7 notebook either - MSVCR100.dll missing. Ug.... but I never received any complaints about it.... perhaps because more people already have this DLL on their systems and/or most people don't use the HTML Tidy functionality.