How do I set the path to a DLL file in Visual Studio

Question

I developed an application that depends on a DLL file  When I debug my application  the applicationwould complain that       This application has failed to start because xxx dll was not found     So I have to copy the DLL file into the same directory as my  vcproj file   Is there a way to set the project to look for the DLL file in  preferably  some relative path or  not preferred  some absolute path   Similar concept to how we set include and library path in the project settings   I mean when I debug my application  hitting F5  the above error would pop up

User · Answer

I had the same problem and my problem had nothing to do with paths. One of my dll-s was written in c++ and it turnes out that if your visual studio doesn't know how to open a dll file it will say that it did not find it. What i did was locate which dll it did not find, than searched for that dll in my directories and opened it in a separate visual studio window. When trying to navigate through Solution explorer of that project, visual studio said that it cannot show what is inside and that i need some extra extensions, so that it can open those files. Surely enough, after installing the recomended extension (in my case something to do with c++) the

"This application has failed to start because xxx.dll was not found."

error miraculously dissapeared.

User · Answer

Go through project properties -  Reference Paths  Then add folder with DLL s

User · Answer

In your Project properties Right click on project  click on property button    Configuration Properties   Build Events   Post Build Events   Command Line   Edit and add one instruction to command line  for example copy botan dll from source path to location where is being executed the program   copy  Y    SolutionDir ProjectDirs x64 Botan lib botan dll     TargetDir

User · Answer

I know this question had been answered years ago  but for those like me who needed to change where the debugger starts the application  change the command property under Project Properties -  Debugging

User · Answer

Go to project properties  Alt F7  Under Debugging  look to the right There s an Environment field  Add your relative path there  relative to vcproj folder  i e     some-framework lib by appending PATH  PATH    ProjectDir  some-framework lib or prepending to the path PATH C  some-framework lib  PATH  Hit F5  debug  again and it should work

User · Answer

Another possibility would be to set the Working Directory under the debugging options to be the directory that has that DLL   Edit   I was going to mention using a batch file to start Visual Studio  and set the PATH variable in the batch file    So then did a bit of searching and see that this exact same question was asked not long ago in this post   The answer suggests the batch file option as well as project settings that apparently may do the job  I did not test it

User · Answer

The search path that the loader uses when you call LoadLibrary   can be altered by using the SetDllDirectory   function   So you could just call this and add the path to your dependency before you load it   See also DLL Search Order

[visual-studio] How do I set the path to a DLL file in Visual Studio?

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