Detecting the MSC_VER of a lib

Question

I have a code base that I am compiling in to a library. Normally I would send the library as MSVC++ 10.0 _MSC_VER == 1600 (Visual Studio 2010) but my customer is asking for it as MSVC++ 11.0 _MSC_VER == 1700 (Visual Studio 2012).

I have downloaded/installed and compiled new versions of my lib with Visual Studio 2012. Now I want to check the lib to see what _MSC_VER version it is currently using to ensure that I am sending them the correct version.

How do you detect what _MSC_VER is used in a library?

Write a little test program that uses a function in your .lib. Link it with the *old* version of your .lib and verify that you get the linker error that your customer gets. Now link it with your *new* version and verify that you don't get a linker error. — Hans Passant, Dec 10 '13 at 20:12
@HansPassant There must be a tool to be able to detect the _MSC_VER of a library. Making a application specific to my lib to detect the _MSC_VER seems like a hack to me. — Steven Smethurst, Dec 10 '13 at 20:18
Yes, that tool is called "linker". It is the one that generates the error. You can use notepad.exe if you really want to. Search for FAILIFMISMATCH. You'll find them in your old .lib — Hans Passant, Dec 10 '13 at 20:29

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 11 '15 at 17:21

5

You might be able to try dumpbin.

c:\dev\tagainijisho>dumpbin C:\Qt\5.4\msvc2010_opengl\lib\qtmaind.lib /rawdata | find "_MSC_VER"
  00000040: 3A 22 5F 4D 53 43 5F 56 45 52 3D 31 36 30 30 22  :"_MSC_VER=1600"

edited May 11 '15 at 17:21

ASCIIThenANSI

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answered May 11 '15 at 16:51

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phuclv · Answer 2 · 2021-08-14T13:06:22.230

_MSC_VER is a macro which only exists in LIB or OBJ files for determining linking capabilities, so you can't use dumpbin PEfile /rawdata | find "_MSC_VER" for compiled EXE or DLL files. In that case you need to check the dependency by running

dumpbin /dependents PEfile

Look for the MSVC*.dll or VCRUNTIME*.dll in the dependency list. The number after that is the VC redistributable version

PS C:> dumpbin.exe /dependents C:\qpdf17.dll
[...]
  Image has the following dependencies:

    ADVAPI32.dll
    MSVCP120.dll
    MSVCR120.dll
    KERNEL32.dll

[...]
PS C:> dumpbin.exe /dependents C:\qpdf26.dll
[...]
  Image has the following dependencies:

    ADVAPI32.dll
    MSVCP140.dll
    KERNEL32.dll
    VCRUNTIME140.dll
    VCRUNTIME140_1.dll
[...]
PS C:>

In the above example MSVCP120 is from MSVC++ 12.0 which means Visual Studio 2013 and _MSC_VER=1800. Similarly VCRUNTIME140 is from MSVC++ 14.0 which means Visual Studio 2015 and _MSC_VER=1900. You can check the version and _MSC_VER values here

Sometimes the /rawdata option won't even work on LIB or OBJ files. I redirected the output to file and saw that the output is truncated in the middle for some unknown reason. The /dependents option also doesn't work for them. In that case you need to use another way. If you have GNU tools then you can run either of the below

strings OBJ_or_LIB.file | grep -Po '_MSC_VER=\d+'
grep -aPo '_MSC_VER=\d+' OBJ_or_LIB.file

Or you can also use this PowerShell command

sls -Ca '_MSC_VER=\d+' OBJ_or_LIB.file |% {$_.matches} | select value

or the full command:

Select-String -CaseSensitive '_MSC_VER=\d+' OBJ_or_LIB.file |
    ForEach-Object {$_.matches} |
    Select-Object value

Detecting the MSC_VER of a lib

2 Answers2