Visual Studio 2010 complains about a missing DLL

Question

I created a project which should use a thirdparty library. I specified the include path and the linker path of the include and lib files respectively. I added all the libraries (.lib files) in Linker-->Input under Project Properties. Everything is now compiling and linking well, but when I start my program it is complaining that a dll is missing. I checked in the lib folder and the dll is there. So, now I do not understand how VS2010 could complain about this. Copying the dll in the project folder solves the problem. But I do not want to copy all the dlls i need in my project folder. Is there a solution here? Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Try adding the .dll folders to your projects Properties > Debbuging > Environment, like

PATH=C:\PATH_TO_SOMETHING\DLL;%PATH%

Answer 2

i typically copy all third party dll's to the bin folder in my project using windows explorer. Then just add a reference to each one in vs. All referenced dll's end up in you bin folder anyways, even when it is compiled and published.

That way I have all my third party dll's for my project in one place. It feels cleaner that way especially when you backup, move or copy projects on different servers, hard drives, computers, etc.