Noobish questions about ML64.exe

[coder]

Hope u guys can give me simple explanations;

1. My niece has left for employment and let me have her laptop with visual studio installed. Does ML64 come installed by default during Windows installation or do I need to install VS to get ML64 separately? I am thinking of upgrading the OS but I don't have any VS installation media. Downloading them from the site is HUGE problem for my connection.

2. Are ML64.exe, LINK.exe, LIB.exe, kernel32.xxx, msvcrt.xxx and the related stuff all standalone products that I can safely copy each of them to a different PCs with no VS installed? Do they have dependencies? I can't test them right now because all PCs I have access to are installed with VS.

3. Why didn't MS rename kernel32.xxx to kernel64.xxx? Kinda confusing, with high risks of overwriting it particularly if I have both versions. Need to be extra careful.

Thanks

[hutch--]

The general drift is to use the ML64 version that is designed for the OS version you are using. Have a look in the subdirectories on Visual Studio to see what binaries are there, if the 64 bit version was installed along with the 32 bit version, ML64 should already be there.

[coder]

Ok. But if I copied that to a different PC with no VS installed, will it still work as a standalone product?

[hutch--]

Probably not if you don't have the matching DLLs required to run the binaries.

[coder]

ok. thanks

[TWell]

ml64.exe is normally in bin\amd64 or bin\x86_amd64 directory.
It usually needs
msvcrxx.dll

link.exe needs also
mspdbxxx.dll
mspdbcore.dll
mspdbsvr.exe
msobjxxx.dll

Tell us what version you want to use.

Use LIB environment variable or linker option -libpath: to point correct directory for x64 libs.

[coder]

Thanks TWELL

It's a 64-bit laptop but with Win7/32-bit installed. I am thinking of cleanly installing a Win10/64-bit on it. I am a bit worry about not being able to re-install VS after that due to slow / crappy connection. I think it would be nice If I could just copy ML64 (and family) from somewhere and put it into the newly installed OS without having to download VS to use it.