[wix-devs] Static libraries across VS versions

Mon Dec 6 10:24:26 PST 2021

It does appear that VS2022 includes only the latest toolsets for each v14x:

* v140: v14.00
* v141: v14.16
* v142: v14.29-16.11
* v143: v14.30-17.0, Latest

But I'm going to trust that:

1. We don't need to install the old versions of Visual Studio; including the old toolsets in the latest version is supported for our purposes.
2. They didn't introduce any incompatibility within a toolset v14x version. So the admonition isn't about point releases within the toolset version, just across toolset versions. (I admit that I'm reading into what they *didn't* say.)

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-devs <wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Sean Hall via wix-devs
Sent: Monday, 6 December, 2021 13:11
To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Cc: Sean Hall <r.sean.hall at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Static libraries across VS versions

The problem is this part - "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."

If the version of the toolset in VS2022 that builds the v140 toolset is newer than any available version for VS2015, then technically they wouldn't support using our .libs with VS2015.

On Mon, Dec 6, 2021 at 12:07 PM Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com> wrote:

> I think this part in the document says we only need the oldest:
>
> > Say you have third-party libraries built by Visual Studio 2015. You 
> > can
> still use them in an application built by Visual Studio 2017, 2019, or 
> 2022. There's no need to recompile with a matching toolset.
>
> So, if you target v140 it works with all linkers in the v14x line. Right?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wix-devs <wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of 
> Sean Hall via wix-devs
> Sent: Monday, December 6, 2021 10:05 AM
> To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> Cc: Sean Hall <r.sean.hall at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Static libraries across VS versions
>
> With that line of reasoning, we would have to build each toolset with 
> the version of Visual Studio that introduced it. Hopefully that's not necessary.
>
> On Mon, Dec 6, 2021 at 11:57 AM Bob Arnson via wix-devs < 
> wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org> wrote:
>
> > We still need to build the libraries for each toolset version (per 
> > the article Sean pointed out) because a VS2017 user won't be using 
> > the
> > VS2022 linker. IOW, they maintained backward compatibility but not 
> > forward compatibility. (Or at least don't guarantee it.)
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>
> > Sent: Monday, 6 December, 2021 12:50
> > To: Bob Arnson <bob at firegiant.com>; WiX Toolset Developer Mailing 
> > List < wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> > Subject: RE: [wix-devs] Static libraries across VS versions
> >
> > But today, we're building the libs multiple times (one for each 
> > supported v14x and architecture). Now we'll be able to build each 
> > project per-architecture. That's a nice reduction in .lib build 
> > matrix,
> right?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bob Arnson <bob at firegiant.com>
> > Sent: Monday, December 6, 2021 9:10 AM
> > To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List 
> > <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> > Cc: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>
> > Subject: RE: [wix-devs] Static libraries across VS versions
> >
> > Basically what we're doing today. :sad_face:
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wix-devs <wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of 
> > Rob Mensching via wix-devs
> > Sent: Monday, 6 December, 2021 11:40
> > To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List 
> > <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> > Cc: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>
> > Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Static libraries across VS versions
> >
> > So we can standardize on VS2022 and build the libraries only once 
> > but will still need to build the libraries using the "v140" toolset 
> > (or "v141" if we dump VS2015 support or "v142" if we dump VS2017 support).
> >
> > Too bad it isn't the other way around.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wix-devs <wix-devs-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of 
> > Sean Hall via wix-devs
> > Sent: Monday, December 6, 2021 8:30 AM
> > To: WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List 
> > <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> > Cc: Sean Hall <r.sean.hall at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Static libraries across VS versions
> >
> > 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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