I would like to release my app with both 32 and 64bit support. I am using elmah and SQLite. Both packages have a separate binary for 32 and 64bits. I cant add both 32 and 64bit DLL. I tried adding both 32 & 64 bit DLLs with a different filename in my bin/release folder and i get an bad image format error. (I tested by running on a Windows server 64 bit with both DLLs in the directory and on my system which does 32bit).
How do i release the app so the same folder can be run as either 32bits or 64bits?
Having just fought with 32- vs. 64-bit not long ago, I'll take a shot at this, at least with some general observations. I know this question is over a year old, but I hope the answer helps someone anyway, regardless of whether you "accept" the answer (which, in contrast to some, is not why I answer questions on StackOverflow).
First off, will 32-bit-only work in a WOW64 context in your situation? Often it will, and that can simplify your situation.
There are, however, situations in which third-party libraries make WOW64 not workable, at least according to their documentation, which is the situation I was facing. To solve the problem, I had to have both a 32-bit and a 64-bit build. If there is a way to release them both in the "same folders" somehow, I did not find it. However, it really was not too difficult to do so. I did have to edit the Visual Studio project files by hand. If I recall, the basic steps were:
Set up my build definitions in Visual Studio carefully, so that both release and debug versions had individual projects set correctly. That meant, in my case, that anything interacting with the native libraries at all had to be built in either x86 or x64 format, not Any CPU. Projects that are MSIL-only can be Any CPU, as far as I can tell.
Edit your project files (e.g., .csproj) so that the correct third-party DLLs are put in the correct folders based on the build. If there was an easier way to accomplish this, I didn't see it. There may be an obvious project file within your solution for this to happen, though it can really happen anywhere in your solution, so long as:
In your actual web project, make sure you add the project with the third-party DLL copy as a reference, even if the web project does not use this other project directly. That way, the files will get copied to your build directory. This seems like a bug in either MSBuild or Visual Studio to me, but as of VS2010, it does not seem to have been fixed. Also, if you need to copy the third-party DLLs to a directory such as App_Code, you may need to edit the web project file to accomplish that.
I would have to be at work to look at the project files and see what changes I specifically made, but these were the basic steps. Unless you can get away with your entire project being compiled as Any CPU, I think you will need to compile both a 32-bit and 64-bit version and deploy the one you need. Your actual code likely will not change, unless you are using native or unmanaged code.
Someone may come along who knows more about this than I, but I hope this helps someone. I'll try to answer any questions left in the comments.
Related
We started to test OE12.4 to migrate our systems from 11.7, but 12.4 licenses doesn't include 32-bit versions of PROWIN32 and AppBuilder anymore. Therefore, we're unable to update and develop new applications using MSCOMCTL Treeview OCX, as we did until now. This isn't a problem for future programs, but for migration it is. We're unable to run programs from PROWIN (x64) which uses MSCOMCTL Treeview OCX's, as well as all other programs who uses 32-bit DLL's. The programs compile like a charm, flawless, but doesn't execute.
I tried to register MSCOMCTL OCX throug CMD in c:\windows\system32 directory but, as expected, it didn't worked. For this DLL, as a discontinued resource, Microsoft doesn't provide a 64-bit compiled code.
I'm aware that exist a open project called PureAblTreeView, which works pretty good and doesn't rely on DLL's dependency, but this object was built on ADM2 and the majority of my old programs are ADM1. Therefore, I'm unable to use that solution without rewrite my programs, which can't be done at this time. I even tried to "rebuid" PureAblTreeView as a SmartV8Object, but it didn't worked. Too many differences to be solved and too little time to achieve a running solution.
Is there any workaround for this situation, besides rebuild the programs?
Thank you all in advance.
If I am reading Knowledge Base article 000153835 correctly, then your issue should have been addressed in 12.4:
The 12.2.5 update and the 12.4 release have re-introduced the
AppBuilder to 32-bit OpenEdge. It is now available to run from the
installed Program Group icons.
First of all thanks to those who will guide or give me a hint on my submitted issue. I am using QT4.7.4 (32bit). The problem is my QT creator can build some example project on QT but some aren't. If it can't build the project than it shows kernel32.dll missing. Can anybody tell me what might be the reason?
Next time, if you have applications and want to know what DLL's they need, I suggest to use a little tool called Depends.exe.
After dragging the exe (or DLL) on top of it, it gives the full list of DLL's and the ones it's missing.
Since I build a lot of different types of applications, this has been a lifesaver. Simply find and copy the DLL's that are listed next to the application and it will run, regardless of Visual Studio version, SDK version or Windows version.
I come from UNIX world, I'm quite familiar with Linux, Solaris, Cygwin
and MinGW development. Recently I ported one of my
big projects (cppcms) to support MSVC,
including building static and dynamic libraries with CMake.
And I get all the time absolutely weird issues:
I had CMake build issues because Windows programming
lacks naming convention
for import and static libraries.
Now I discovered that I should use different versions of ICU (debug/release builds) according to the
actual build I do (Debug/RelWithDebInfo -- should use Debug ICU, Release release ICU) and so I should
change actual conventions for searching libraries according to debug/release mode only under MSVC.
Otherwise application just would not start giving a error on missing DLL.
I don't have any such issues under Mingw or Cygwin with GCC, Open Solaris with Sun Studio or Linux with gcc or intel compilers.
And I still have numerous wired issues and wired bugs and very strange behavior -- even some trivial things do not work
under MSVC builds, when everything works absolutely fine under Solaris/Linux/Cygwin/Mingw using GCC from 3.4 up to 4.4,
Sun Studio and Intel compilers). But not under MSVC.
To be honest, I have no idea how to deal with Last one! Because it looks like for me more like environment issues.
I know that the question is not really well defined. I think I'm quite experienced
developer and I know how to write portable and good C++ code. But using Microsoft native
tools drives me crazy with issues I just don't know how to solve.
Question: What should experienced Unix programmer with quite good base in Win32 API should know when it
starts using Genuine Microsoft Tools?
P.S.: Can someone explain why "Release With Debug Info" requires Debug version of MSVC runtime? And why there two versions of runtime exist at all?
P.P.S.: Please note I don't have issues with Win32 API, in fact Windows GCC build works absolutely fine.
Clarifications:
I'm looking for pitfalls that programmer that come from Unix world would may fall into.
For example, when moving from Linux to Solaris: make sure you compile code with -mt or
-pthreads when using multi threaded programs, linking with -lpthread is not enough.
P.S.: Can someone explain why "Release
With Debug Info" requires Debug
version of MSVC runtime?
It doesn't.
And why there
two versions of runtime exist at all?
Because the debug version does more error checking.
And I still have numerous wired issues
and wired bugs and very strange
behavior -- even some trivial things
do not work under MSVC builds,
* What am I doing wrong?
Not telling us what "wired issues and wired bugs and very strange behavior" you get.
* Where should I start?
By telling us the specific errors and problems you encounter.
* What do I miss?
Reading the documentation and learning the tools.
If your question is "What do I read to become a good Windows programmer?" then my answer is: Everything from Jeff Richter, as a start.
There is no magic bullet which will automatically make you an experienced Windows developer. Windows is a very different land compared to Unix. There are lots of quirks, weird behavior, and stuff which is just plain different. The only way to get out with your sanity intact is to tackle the transition one small problem at a time. Concentrate on a specific problem and try to understand the problem. Don't just "get it to work", but really understand what is happening. A good book about Windows programming will help.
There are huge amounts of Windows knowledge and experience accumulated in the SO community, but the only way to access it is to ask concrete questions about specific problems.
The release and debug versions of DLL's use different ways of allocating memory, that is why it is not advisable to mix release and debug versions. If you allocate something in a debug mode DLL and pass it back to the application which was compiled in release mode you may get into trouble.
In the case of your naming issues you may want to have different directories where you place your static / dll's. You can do do this in visual studio by using the configuration manager, not sure how it is under the express version.
I think you need to try and actually understand the new toolset rather than just try and squish it into your current understanding of your existing tools. For that, the best way, IMHO, is for you to try and start to use Visual Studio as Microsoft intended and then once you can build a simple project in the IDE you can move to building it using your preferred make system but do so with an understanding of how the IDE is using its make system to set things up for that build (which WILL work).
So, for example, for part 1 of your question you want to create a simple static library project and a simple dll project and look at the linker options tabs. Jump to the 'Command line' view and you'll see that a DLL uses the /OUT linker option to set the name and location of the dll file and the /LIB linker option to set the name and location of the import library. With a static library only the /OUT option is used and it indicates the name of the static lib. It's true that if you're building a static lib and a DLL from the same source and you have both the /LIB for the dll set to MyCrossPlatformCode.lib and /OUT set to MyCrossPlatformCode.dll then you may have problems if you also build a static lib with an /OUT switch of MyCrossPlatformCode.lib... Simply don't do that; either build the static libs to a different output directory (which is what OpenSSL does), or, better (IMHO), mangle the names somewhat so that you have MyCrossPlatformCode.lib/.dll and MyCrossPlatformCode_static.lib (which is what STLPort does).
Note that you might also want to mangle in (or account for) building with different versions of the Microsoft tool chain (so you might end up with stlport_vc8_x64d_static.5.1, perhaps).
An alternative approach, if you really can't face the thought of understanding your toolset, is that you could take a look at some of the popular open source systems that build quite fine on Windows and Unix systems; OpenSSL and STLPort for a start, perhaps.
In my line of work I'm often retrieving very specific versions of crusty ASP.NET web apps from their long-forgotten repositories, making minor changes and then recompiling.
A major annoyance in this process is having to create a virtual directory for every web project that I need to recompile. I don't have any problems with the process, but it's tedious and still a very manual process on .NET 1 projects.
Is there a fairly simple way to recompile the binaries of the csproj without setting up a new virtual directory?
Edit: I don't mind using command line tools, or external solutions, as long as they're fairly simple and straightforward.
I'm not sure there's any other way unless you can convert the project to vs 2005.
I ran into a similar issue when i was dealing with a web project that i needed to manage a few branches that all wanted the same virtual directory. I wrote this small app that does some switching of the virtual for you automagically.
I have added on to the app to make it more functional (supporting more than just one project at once)... and i'm sorry to say i have never update the code on the blog. This might just serve as a good starting place for you to manage your virtual directories.
I will try to get the latest code up on the blog soon and i will update this post when i do.
but in the meantime check out the source here
ps. i know this version of the code needs to be cleaned up this version was just a proof of concept.
Is it possible to exclude a folder in a web project from being published? We've got some documentation and scripts that included in a particular project folder, and are added to the project, but when I do a VS publish, I don't want them to go up to the production server.
I know they shouldn't be in the project, but I thought I'd find a workaround before I try to convince the owner to modify the way he's doing things.
Old question, but I found if I mark the folder as hidden in Windows Explorer, it doesn't show/publish in your solution.
This is good for example to stop original photoshop images being included in uploads which aren't used and are big. Anything more complex though you'll probably want to write your own publish tool.
This doesn't answer your question, exactly, but my feeling is that unless you are a single developer publishing to a server, you would be better off doing builds on a dedicated workstation or server using MSBuild (or some other building and deploying solution) directly (and thereby would be able to very granularly control what goes up to production). MSBuild can not only build, but using some extensions (including open source types), it can also deploy. Microsoft has a product called MSDeploy in beta, and that might be an even better choice, but having no experience with it, I cannot say for certain.
In our situation, we have a virtual workstation as a build box, and all we have to do is double click on the batch file that starts up an MSBuild project. It labels all code using VSS, gets latest version, builds the solution, and then deploys it to both servers. We deploy exactly what we want to deploy and nothing more. We're quite happy with it.
The only downside, if it could be considered a downside, is that at least one of us had to learn how to use MSBuild. VS itself uses MSBuild.
For the files you don't want to go, loop at the properties and set the 'Copy to Output Directory' to 'Do not copy'
This option is not available for directories, however.
Can you not exclude them from the project through visual studio to stop them being published. They will the still exist in the filesystem
The only way that you can do this to my knowledge would be to exclude it from the project, do the publish, then re-include it in the project. That can be an issue.
There are probably much better ways to solve this problem but when we publish a build for our dev servers, we'll run a batch file when the build is complete to remove the un-needed folders and web.configs (so we don't override the ones that are already deployed).
According to http://www.mahingupta.com/mahingupta/blog/post/2009/12/04/AspNet-website-Exclude-folder-from-compilation.aspx you can just give the folder the "hidden" attribute in windows explorer and it won't publish. I tested this and it works for me.
Seems like a straightforward solution for quick and dirty purposes, but I don't think it will carry through our version control (mercurial).
Select all the files that should not be published.
Go to Properties
Set
Build Action -> None
Have to repeat the process for each sub-directory.