[wix-devs] Static libraries across VS versions

[Sean Hall]

Microsoft explicitly does not support this -
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/porting/binary-compat-2015-2017.

* You can mix binaries built by different versions of the v140, v141, v142,
and v143 toolsets. However, you must link by using a toolset at least as
recent as the most recent binary in your app. Here's an example: you can
link an app compiled using any 2017 toolset (v141, versions 15.0 through
15.9) to a static library compiled using, say, Visual Studio 2019 version
16.2 (v142). You just have to link them by using a version 16.2 or later
toolset. You can link a version 16.2 library to a version 16.4 app as long
as you use a 16.4 or later toolset.

On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 5:21 PM Bob Arnson via wix-devs <
wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org> wrote:

> I'll open an issue but wanted to get a head start. I gave myself the
> action item (oh god, I can't believe I just said that) to investigate
> whether we could build our static libraries with the latest VS and use them
> "down-level" on earlier versions of VS. The answer...
>
> ...is yes, we can. I built DUtil with VS2022 and with some tweak to the
> nupkeg was able to consume it from a project originally built with VS2019
> and subsequently built with VS2017. It's not an exhaustive test - console,
> string, proc -- but I suspect that it was more of a pass/fail test.
>
> Questions:
>
>
>   1.  Should we do this? (I vote +1.)
>   2.  Should we do this now, with VS2019 as the baseline?
>   3.  Should we decide now to use VS2022 as the baseline?
>
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