If an isolated application specifies an assembly dependency, side-by-side first searches for the assembly among the shared assemblies in the WinSxS folder.
This topic demonstrates how to deploy applications by copying application files from one computer to another. This technique is useful for debugging applications on another computer. For background on this deployment scenario, see Scenarios for Deployment Examples .
A Windows side-by-side assembly is described by manifests . A side-by-side assembly contains a collection of resources—a group of DLLs, Windows classes, COM servers, type libraries, or interfaces—that are always provided to applications together.
Loading a C/C++ application can fail if dependent Visual C++ libraries cannot be found. A list of potential runtime errors can be found in Redistributing Visual C++ Files .
When you develop an application using Visual C++, you have the advantage of working on a computer that is not only a good development environment, but is also a convenient environment on which to run and test applications.
If you create a C++ project in Visual Studio and configure it to "Use MFC in a Shared DLL" (the default) you need to make sure the C runtime (CRT) and the MFC libraries are installed in the correct versions on the end user's computer.
If you create a C++ project in Visual Studio and configure it to “Use MFC in a Shared DLL” (the default) you need to make sure the C runtime (CRT) and the MFC libraries are installed in the correct versions on the end user’s computer. That can be difficult. There are three ways to install the libraries on target computers.