Why not compile with `\MD` switch?

[niheaven]

Hi, I'm not familiar with "cl" and have some doubt about why not compile the exe with the "\MD" switch?

This would significantly reduce the exe size and the "msvcrt.dll" is present on every Windows machine, right?

[kiennq]

I'm not using cl but instead using clang++ to compile it. With or without the -static flag, the size doesn't change much.

Also, depends on Windows version, the linked msvcrt can be different, in this case we're using the c++20 which should link against the ucrtbase.dll, and is not available on older windows version. Just have a static link would be safer

[niheaven]

It seems that by using /MD the exe is linked to MSVCRT.lib which should be available on every Windows PC: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build/reference/md-mt-ld-use-run-time-library?view=msvc-170

I'll test the release on older Windows version since this flag could reduce file size to 16.5KB.

[kiennq]

Also, it worth noting that the msvcrt.dll and ucrbased.dll is part of the OS, and it can break your app if you link against the wrong version of it.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1073509/should-i-redistribute-msvcrt-dll-with-my-application

There are VS distributed packages for each require msvcrt versions (you can even find some of them on the extra scoop packages as well), dynamically link against them is not really recommended.

The msvc 170 version I believe is quite old already and the new Windows version (from 1904 onward) gradually switch to the newer one and ucrt.