Knowledge Base

PRB: Statically linked MFC App Causes Trouble on Win32s

Article ID: 149638

Article Last Modified on 11/21/2006

Microsoft Foundation Class Library 4.2, when used with:
- Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 4.1 Subscription

This article was previously published under Q149638

SYMPTOMS

An MFC application that statically links to the MFC library may cause strange problems when it's run under Win32s.

One known problem with static MFC applications in Win32s occurs when one static MFC application is started and then two instances of another MFC application that dynamically links to MFC in the Shared Library (Mfc40.dll) are run. The second instance of the Shared Lib MFC application will fail and return this message:

Win32s - Error. Initialization of dynamic link library failed. The process is terminating abnormally.

CAUSE

The static MFC library uses the static version of the C Run-Time Library. However, the static version of the C Run-Time Library was not designed to be used in Win32s.

Visual C++ versions 4.2 and later do not support building Win32s applications.

RESOLUTION

Change the build settings for the application linking to MFC in the static library to use MFC in the Shared Library (Mfc40.dll).

There are special versions of the Mfc40.dll and Msvcrt40.dll for running under the Win32s platform that can be found in the \Win32s\Redist directory on the Visual C++ 4.0 CD-ROM. These two DLLs will need to be distributed with the new application.

REFERENCES

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