Trying to port application to docker nanoserver container. Running exe fails with exit code -1073741515 (Dependency missing)

Question

I'm currently trying to port my image optimizer application to a NanoServer docker image. One of the tools my image optimizer uses is truepng.exe. (Can be downloaded here: http://x128.ho.ua/clicks/clicks.php?uri=TruePNG_0625.zip)

I simply created a nanoserver container and mounted a folder that contained truepng.exe:

docker run --rm -it -v C:\data:C:\data mcr.microsoft.com/windows/nanoserver:2004-amd64

When I now run truepng.exe I expect some output regarding command line arguments missing:

C:\MyLocalWindowsMachine>truepng
TruePNG 0.6.2.5 : PNG Optimizer
by x128 (2010-2017)
x128@ua.fm

...

However when I call this from inside the nanoserver docker container I basically see no output:

C:\data>truepng

C:\data>echo %ERRORLEVEL%
-1073741515

As you can see above, the exit code is set to -1073741515. According to this it typically means that there's a dependency missing.

I then downloaded https://github.com/lucasg/Dependencies to see the dependencies of truepng:

It seems it has some dependencies on 5 DLL's. Looking these up I found that there's apparently something called 'Reverse Forwarders': https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2015/11/16/moving-to-nano-server-the-new-deployment-option-in-windows-server-2016/

According to the following post though they should already be included in nanoserver: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/5b36a6d3-84c9-4940-8b7a-9e2a38468291/reverse-forwarders-package-in-tp5?forum=NanoServer

After all this investigation I've also been playing around with manually copying over the DLL's from my local machine (system32) to the docker machine without any success (it just kept breaking other things like the copy command which required me to recreate the container). Next to that I've also copied the files from SysWOW64, but this didn't help either.

I'm currently quite stranded on how to proceed further as I'm not even sure if the tool is missing dependencies or if something else is going on. Is there a way to investigate what DLL's are missing once a tool is starting?

Kind regards,

Devedse

Edit 1: Idea from @CherryDT I tried running gflags (https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/f004a7e5-9024-4555-9ada-e692fbc3160d/how-to-start-quotloader-snapsquot?forum=vcgeneral) which gave the following output:

C:\data>"C:\data\gflags.exe" /i TruePNG.exe +sls
Current Registry Settings for TruePNG.exe executable are: 00000000

After this I tried running Dbgview.exe, this however never resulted in a log file being written:

C:\data>"C:\data\DebugView\Dbgview.exe" /v /l debugview-log.txt /g /n

C:\data>

I also started TruePNG.exe again, but again, no log file was written.

I tried querying the EventLogs using a dotnet core application, but this resulted in the following exception:

Unhandled exception. System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot open log Application on computer '.'. This function is not supported on this system.
   at System.Diagnostics.EventLogInternal.OpenForRead(String currentMachineName)
   at System.Diagnostics.EventLogInternal.GetEntryAtNoThrow(Int32 index)
   at System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryCollection.GetEntryAtNoThrow(Int32 index)
   at System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryCollection.EntriesEnumerator.MoveNext()
   at EventLogReaderTest.ConsoleApp.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\data\EventLogReaderTest.ConsoleApp\Program.cs:line 22

Answer 1

Windows Nano Server is tiny and only supports 64-bit applications, tools, and agents. The missing dependency in this case is the entire x86 emulation layer (WoW64), as TruePNG is a 32-bit application.

Windows Server Core contains WoW64 and other components missing from Nano Server. Use a Windows Server Core image instead.

Example command:

docker run --rm -it -v C:\Temp:C:\Temp mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:2004 C:\Temp\TruePNG.exe

Yields the expected output:

TruePNG 0.6.2.5 : PNG Optimizer
by x128 (2010-2017)
x128@ua.fm

TruePNG {options} files

options:
/f#     PNG delta filters 0=None, 1=Sub, 2=Up, 3=Average, 4=Paeth, 5=Mixed
/fe     PNG extra filters, overrides /f switch
/i#     PNG interlace method 0=None, 1=Adam7 (default input)
/g#     PNG gamma 0=Remove, 1=Apply & Remove, 2=Keep (default)
[...]