Is Visual-C++-2017 binary compatible with VC++-2015?

Question

Steve tells me that VC 2015 and VC 2017 are actually (gonna be) binary compatible.

I found zero info wrt. this in the release notes for 2017 (RC) - or pretty much anywhere for that matter, so here goes:

Is a C++ (C++ interface) DLL built with VC++-2017 binary compatible with a DLL built by VC++-2015?
Do 2017 and 2015 use the same (dynamic) runtime library?
If so, what, if any, is the runtime difference between Platform Toolset Visual Studio 2017 (v141) and Visual Studio 2015 (v140)? (*)

(*): Yeah, I actually went ahead and installed the 2017 RC, and from what I can see on the surface, at least the identical MSVCRT is used, that is msvcp140.dll and vcruntime140.dll (despite the platform toolset being called "v141".

MS has since added an "official" blurb: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/porting/binary-compat-2015-2017?view=vs-2017 — Martin Ba, Nov 07 '18 at 09:25

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 06 '17 at 17:45

21

Yes, the 141 and 140 libraries are almost identical. The version was bumped for a side-by-side issue. The v140 toolset in VisualC++ 2015 and v141 toolset in VC++ 2017 are binary compatible.

edited Sep 06 '17 at 17:45

Manjunath

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answered Nov 30 '16 at 18:57

apardoe

631
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1

Is this still the case for VS2017 15.3? We're getting linker errors ("different compiler version") with 2015 static libs now. – Kevin Richardson Aug 24 '17 at 18:36
I'm unable to install **VC++2015Redist** on a machine that has **VC++2017Redist** https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45967479/can-visual-c-2017-redistributable-package-support-the-applications-that-use-vc – Manjunath Aug 30 '17 at 18:40
4

Kevin, are you using libraries compiled with /GL (link-time codegen)? Those are not supported across major compiler versions. They worked with 15.0-15.2, but that was just dumb luck. – apardoe Sep 09 '17 at 19:53
@KevinRichardson Maybe this is supposed to work, but you're hitting the following bug? I'm getting this error myself: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/112448/link-failure-with-vs2015-static-library-and-vs2017.html – Scott Langham Sep 15 '17 at 12:24
1

Yes, we recently talked to Microsoft and it was the /GL issue. – Kevin Richardson Sep 15 '17 at 15:45
To clarify @apardoe comment which points to the root of the issue, /GL (link-time codegen) is misleading. In VS project settings, /GL is associated with "Whole Program Optimization", so look for that to disable. LTCG is implied with /GL however. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/ltcg-link-time-code-generation?view=vs-2017 – solvingJ Sep 06 '18 at 00:59
@apardoe - Hi Andrew. Maybe you would like to take a look at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53187152/is-the-official-binary-incompatibility-between-vs2017-and-vs2015-app-vs-dll-acc ... official docs confuse me some. – Martin Ba Nov 07 '18 at 10:04

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 03 '20 at 13:01

Microsoft has been updating their CRT in an incremental manner.

Visual C++ 14.0 (2015) CRT has 4 files:

vcruntime140.dll (C Runtime; from refactored msvcr*.dll)
concrt140.dll (the Concurrency Runtime; also from msvcr*.dll)
msvcp140.dll (C++ Runtime)
vccorlib140.dll (C++/CX Platform::*)

Visual C++ 14.1 (2017) CRT adds only 2 files:

vcruntime140_1.dll (seems like a patch to SEH in vcruntime140.dll)
msvcp140_1.dll (C++17 Polymorphic Memory Resources)

Visual C++ 14.2 (2019) CRT adds only 2 files:

msvcp140_2.dll (C++17 Mathematical Special Functions and std::hypot(x, y, z))
msvcp140_codecvt_ids.dll (bug fix for std::codecvt; see the Stack Overflow question)

If some of the additional features listed above are not used, the binary can work with older versions of C Runtime.

Note that ``msvcp140_2.dll`` is actually in VS 2017 (added in an update), and ``vcruntime140_1.dll`` was added in VS 2019 to support a new x64 exception handling implementation (see [this blog post](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/making-cpp-exception-handling-smaller-x64/)). Note that ``concrt140.dll`` is only used for Windows XP platform support for ````; it's not used on newer versions of Windows. — Chuck Walbourn, Jun 16 '20 at 19:35

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 14 '20 at 01:52

Yes, visual 2019(14.2),2017(14.1),2015(14.0) are all binary compatible, they are all 14.x version. See more on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/porting/binary-compat-2015-2017?view=vs-2017. New versions add some new features or patches.

The following are the files in 2017 and 2019, you can find the new files added in 2019.


C:\Users\Liu.D.H>dir "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Redist\MSVC\14.16.27012\x64\Microsoft.VC141.CRT"
 Volume in drive C is System
 Volume Serial Number is 0CAC-076E

 Directory of C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\VC\Redist\MSVC\14.16.27012\x64\Microsoft.VC141.CRT

2020-09-25  14:41    <DIR>          .
2020-09-25  14:41    <DIR>          ..
2020-09-25  14:41           332,568 concrt140.dll
2020-09-25  14:41           627,992 msvcp140.dll
2020-09-25  14:41            31,512 msvcp140_1.dll
2020-09-25  14:41           206,104 msvcp140_2.dll
2020-09-25  14:41           366,872 vccorlib140.dll
2020-09-25  14:41            85,784 vcruntime140.dll
               6 File(s)      1,650,832 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  57,822,343,168 bytes free

C:\Users\Liu.D.H>dir "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Redist\MSVC\14.27.29016\x64\Microsoft.VC142.CRT"
 Volume in drive C is System
 Volume Serial Number is 0CAC-076E

 Directory of C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC\Redist\MSVC\14.27.29016\x64\Microsoft.VC142.CRT

2020-09-25  13:07    <DIR>          .
2020-09-25  13:07    <DIR>          ..
2020-09-25  13:07           317,224 concrt140.dll
2020-09-25  13:07           590,632 msvcp140.dll
2020-09-25  13:07            31,528 msvcp140_1.dll
2020-09-25  13:07           193,832 msvcp140_2.dll
2020-09-25  13:07            27,936 msvcp140_codecvt_ids.dll
2020-09-25  13:07           337,696 vccorlib140.dll
2020-09-25  13:07           101,672 vcruntime140.dll
2020-09-25  13:07            44,328 vcruntime140_1.dll
               8 File(s)      1,644,848 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  57,822,343,168 bytes free

C:\Users\Liu.D.H>

Because I can't install 2015 files. I extract it (D:\apps\wix311-binaries\dark.exe -nologo -x "D:\tmp\vcredist_x64-2015" "C:\Users\Liu.D.H\Downloads\vc_redist.x64-2015.exe") and you can find the files below.

liudonghua@desktop-ldh:/mnt/d/tmp/vcredist_x64-2015$ /usr/bin/tree .
.
├── AttachedContainer
│   └── packages
│       ├── Patch
│       │   ├── x64
│       │   │   ├── Windows6.0-KB2999226-x64.msu
│       │   │   ├── Windows6.1-KB2999226-x64.msu
│       │   │   ├── Windows8-RT-KB2999226-x64.msu
│       │   │   └── Windows8.1-KB2999226-x64.msu
│       │   └── x86
│       │       ├── Windows6.0-KB2999226-x86.msu
│       │       ├── Windows6.1-KB2999226-x86.msu
│       │       ├── Windows8-RT-KB2999226-x86.msu
│       │       └── Windows8.1-KB2999226-x86.msu
│       ├── vcRuntimeAdditional_amd64
│       │   ├── cab1
│       │   │   ├── mfc140.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140chs.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140cht.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140deu.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140enu.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140esn.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140fra.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140ita.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140jpn.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140kor.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140rus.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfc140u.dll
│       │   │   ├── mfcm140.dll
│       │   │   └── mfcm140u.dll
│       │   ├── cab1.cab
│       │   └── vc_runtimeAdditional_x64.msi
│       └── vcRuntimeMinimum_amd64
│           ├── cab1
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_console_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_datetime_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_debug_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_errorhandling_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_file_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_file_l1_2_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_file_l2_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_handle_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_heap_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_interlocked_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_libraryloader_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_localization_l1_2_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_memory_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_namedpipe_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_processenvironment_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_processthreads_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_processthreads_l1_1_1.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_profile_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_rtlsupport_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_string_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_synch_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_synch_l1_2_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_sysinfo_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_timezone_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_core_util_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_conio_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_convert_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_environment_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_filesystem_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_heap_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_locale_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_math_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_multibyte_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_private_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_process_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_runtime_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_stdio_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_string_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_time_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── api_ms_win_crt_utility_l1_1_0.dll
│           │   ├── concrt140.dll
│           │   ├── msvcp140.dll
│           │   ├── ucrtbase.dll
│           │   ├── vcamp140.dll
│           │   ├── vccorlib140.dll
│           │   ├── vcomp140.dll
│           │   └── vcruntime140.dll
│           ├── cab1.cab
│           └── vc_runtimeMinimum_x64.msi
└── UX
    ├── 1028
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1029
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1031
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1036
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1040
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1041
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1042
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1045
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1046
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1049
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 1055
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 2052
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── 3082
    │   ├── license.rtf
    │   └── thm.wxl
    ├── BootstrapperApplicationData.xml
    ├── license.rtf
    ├── logo.png
    ├── manifest.xml
    ├── thm.wxl
    ├── thm.xml
    └── wixstdba.dll

23 directories, 106 files
liudonghua@desktop-ldh:/mnt/d/tmp/vcredist_x64-2015$

The main files in 2015 are the following.

│           │   ├── concrt140.dll
│           │   ├── msvcp140.dll
│           │   ├── ucrtbase.dll
│           │   ├── vcamp140.dll
│           │   ├── vccorlib140.dll
│           │   ├── vcomp140.dll
│           │   └── vcruntime140.dll

Is Visual-C++-2017 binary compatible with VC++-2015?

3 Answers3

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