CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowsqtvisual-c++visual-studio-2012deployment
David Szalai
David Szalai

Reputation: 2549

Deploy Qt app on win7 32-bit - works (and compiles) on Win7 x64

Well, I've spent a day looking for solution and have read everything but I am not able to deploy my Qt application, so I decided to ask.

I'm using Qt 5.2.1 via the Visual Studio Add-In in VS 2013 Ultimate, the qt version is msvcr2012. I have the x86 version of Qt 5.2 (now the 3rd from the bottom at Qt Downloads page).

I'm targeting Win7 32-bit.

My OS is Windows7 64-bit, I'm building the app for win32, release /o2 (max speed) optimalization, /MD (dynamic C runtime), with libraries linked:

qtmain.lib
Qt5Core.lib
Qt5Gui.lib
Qt5Widgets.lib
Qt5PlatformSupport.lib //this one is added by me, the others are automatically set with the Qt-AddIn template.

I build it, and to the release folder I put the followings:

EDIT: because of the version of my compiler, I also distribute the vs2012 dll.s as you see.

enter image description here

.../release                                            /plugins        /platforms

I've set the addittional library path with (just for the 100% chance of finding them):

void registerPluginsDir(QDir& exeDir)
{
QString pluginsRelPath = "plugins";
QString platformsRelPath = "platforms";
QString pluginsPath = exeDir.absoluteFilePath(pluginsRelPath);
QString platformsPath = QDir(pluginsPath).absoluteFilePath(platformsRelPath);
QStringList pathes = QCoreApplication::libraryPaths();
pathes << pluginsPath;
pathes << platformsPath;
QCoreApplication::setLibraryPaths(pathes);

for (auto i : pathes)
    qDebug() << i << "\n";
};

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QString exePath = QString::fromUtf8(argv[0]);
    QFileInfo exeInfo(exePath);
    QDir exeDir(exeInfo.absolutePath());
    registerPluginsDir(exeDir);

    QApplication a(argc, argv);
    KeyGenerator w;
    w.show();
    return a.exec();
};

The pathes are correct. With the debugger I saw they were loaded from my app folder, not from the Qt main folder.

With depends.exe I checked everything. I only get 2 warnings, no errors: 

Warning: At least one delay-load dependency module was not found.
Warning: At least one module has an unresolved import due to a missing export function in a delay-load dependent module.

I've copied the .dll-s according to the .dll-s loaded when debugged the app in Visual Studio. The only difference between depends.exe and the debug, that in VS system dll-s were loaded from SysWOW64, not system32.

With all these on my (developer) pc it runs withouth any error, but on the test (Win7 32-bit running on Microsoft Virtual PC) pc I get the 'infamous' error:

Failed to load platform plugin “windows”. Available platforms are:
(and here there are the full pathes to the .dll-s, 
eg: D:\cproj\keygen\win32\Release\plugins\platforms\qwindows.dll, so it must have found them.

I followed this too: http://qt-project.org/wiki/Deploy_an_Application_on_Windows.
Renamed the Qt-dir, the console only output the release folder as library inputs (not the Qt-folders like my first test). It loaded the dll-s from the app folders, launched well. However, on my virtual PC, or on my brother's pac (Win7 32bit) it gives me the error.ˇA picture about this:

enter image description here

How to run it on 32-bit machine? I tried it with every build, release-win32, debug-win32, none of them works. I can't test it on more machines, on XP it can't even load the C-runtime, but that's not a target platform.

For more info please comment.

EDIT: Dependency walker on target pc shows the same as on dev pc. It still finds the plugins, but can't load.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 2715

Answers (2)

David Szalai
David Szalai

Reputation: 2549

The problem was not with the plug-ins, but it also requested the VS2010 redists.
After I tried everything I've found it in the Qt folder, and tried running my app with installing it. Now it runs on the Virtual PC too, however, it was not listed (or I oversaw this) in the dependencies. It only listed 2012 and 2013 versions.

Upvotes: 0

Kuba hasn&#39;t forgotten Monica
Kuba hasn&#39;t forgotten Monica

Reputation: 98505

I don't know why you bother with setting of the paths etc. The Qt wiki article that you link shows that you don't have a plugins folder, but everything from that folder should go into your executable's folder.

deployment screenshot

The advice they give is very simple:

  1. Every .dll from Qt's bin directory needs to be copied to your executable's folder.

  2. Everything (files and folders) from Qt's plugins and qml folders needs to be copied to your executable's folder.

You can then cut it down to modules that you don't use. Works for me, just fine.

It is also incorrect to say that "I have to add the .dll-s to the release build because I'm not using the commercial version.". If you follow my advice, you can easily build statically-linked executables with Qt 5 and MSVC 2012, I'm even giving details on how to target Windows XP with all that. And you can do it just fine under terms of LGPL, you just need to let your users relink your project (that doesn't imply giving out C++ sources!).

Upvotes: 3

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