Visual C++ 2005
Developer: Summary: Discusses the distribution of Microsoft Visual C 2005 runtimes for C plug-ins Updated: June 17, 2011If you do not have Visual C 2005 installed on your computer, the Microsoft Visual C 2005 Redistributable Packages install runtime components of Visual C Libraries required to run C plug-ins developed with Visual C.These packages install runtime components of C Runtime (CRT), Standard C, ATL, MFC, OpenMP, and MSDIA libraries. For libraries that support side-by-side deployment models (CRT, SCL, ATL, MFC, OpenMP) they are installed into the native assembly cache, also called WinSxS folder, on versions of Windows operating system that support side-by-side assemblies.More information. Any Rhino plug-in that you build has dependencies on assemblies (DLLs). A Rhino C plug-in, which is an MFC DLL, (in a release build) depends at least on the CRT (msvcr80.dll, msvcp80.dll) and MFC (mfc80.dll or mfc80u.dll) assemblies. You, the plug-in developer, have these assemblies on your machine because you have Visual C 2005 installed.
But a machine without Visual C 2005 may not have them. To be able to run your plug-in on such machines, you have to redistribute these assemblies.To redistribute the required assemblies, you need to know which version of the assemblies your plug-in requires. For example, a plug-in built with Visual C 2005 SP1 requires a different version of the Microsoft Visual C 2005 Redistributable Package than a plug-in built with a non-service packed version of Visual C 2005.Redistributable Packages versions. To know which Redistributable Package to include with your plug-in installation, you need to know what is installed on the system that built your plug-in. With the dozens of Microsoft Windows updates that have been available over the years, it can be a real challenge to determine what version, service pack, and security updates of Visual Studio 2005 you have installed.One sure way to know what Redistributable Package your plug-in requires is to examine your plug-in's Manifest. A manifest is an XML document that can be an external XML file or a resource embedded inside an application or an assembly (plug-in).
Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1
The manifest of an isolated application is used to manage the names and versions of shared side-by-side assemblies to which the application should bind at run time. The manifest of a side-by-side assembly specifies its dependencies on names, versions, resources, and other assemblies.One way to determine the required assemblies of your plug-in is to use the Manifest Tool (MT.EXE) included with Visual C 2005. For example, from a Visual Studio command prompt, you can do the following:C:Plug-inscppPlugIn1Releasemt -inputresource:plugin1.rhp;#2 -out:manifest.txtTypically, EXEs have an embedded manifest in resource #1, while DLLs have the manifest in resource #2. If you do not find a manifest resource in #1, check #2. Here is the contents of “manifest.txt” created by MT.EXE. In this example, we can see that the required verison of CRT and MFC is 8.0. In this case, include the when distributing this plug-in.Other resources.
Besides the Manifest Tool (MT.EXE) included with Visual C 2005, there are other useful tools for helping determine required assemblies., by Steve P. Miller, is a free utility that scans any 32-bit or 64-bit Windows module (EXE, DLL, RHP, etc.) and builds a hierarchical tree diagram of all dependent modules. Dependency Walker is useful for troubleshooting system errors related to loading and executing modules., by Kenny Kerr, is also a free utility for viewing an application's manifest. This tool is similar to the Manifest Tool but much easier to use.