Targetting Windows XP from Visual Studio 2012 when using C++ DLL

Question

I am trying to execute a C# program on Windows XP (SP3) which references a managed C++ DLL compiled with VS2012. When compiling the C++ DLL, I have set the Platform Toolset to build to Windows XP (using the v110_xp option) and set minimum required version to 5.01 in linker options, and I already installed Visual C++ 2012 Redistributable Package on the Windows XP machine. But it didn't work.

Any idea on this?

Answer 1

As you mentioned Platform Toolset and v110_xp option, I'd risk assuming the question is about an unmanaged C++ DLL. Anyway, try compiling your DLL with the original VS 2012 distribution (no updates) and see if it works. I dealt with a similar issue caused by VS 2012 Update 2, which is described here. You could test each of your dependency DLLs (including VC++ redistributables) with DependencyWalker, to check if any of them is using a Win32 API not implemented by Windows XP. Just do it under XP itself.