CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++cwinapientry-point
Jackson Lenhart
Jackson Lenhart

Reputation: 650

Linker error unresolved external symbol with only wWinMain MSVC 2019

This is the only code I have:

#include <windows.h>

int APIENTRY wWinMain(
    _In_ HINSTANCE hInstance,
    _In_opt_ HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
    _In_ LPWSTR pCmdLine,
    _In_ int nCmdShow)
{
    OutputDebugStringA("Hello\n");

    return 0;
}

The wWinMain function with the exact same signature works in a separate project I created with the "Windows Desktop Application" (or something) template.

However I am getting a LNK2019 with the message:

unresolved external symbol _main referenced in function "int __cdecl invoke_main(void)" (?invoke_main@@YAHXZ)

coming from MSVCRTD.lib(exe_main.obj)

I am using Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition with MSVC 2019 on Windows 10. I created an "Empty Project" and only have a "main.cpp" file in the "Source Files" directory.

Can anyone help me try to diagnose what may be going wrong here? I am having no luck reading msdn/searching the web for the solution, it is very frustrating as I am just trying to get off the ground here.

Thank you.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1195

Answers (1)

rustyx
rustyx

Reputation: 85481

Set Subsystem to Windows in linker settings (for all configurations and targets).

Subsystem Windows

Visual Studio can compile for different Windows subsystems, each requiring its own program entrypoint. An error saying "_main not found" suggests your subsystem is set to Console, since the linker is looking for a main() function.

If you have a WinMain() entrypoint (or wWinMain() for Unicode mode), it means you're targeting the Windows subsystem.

Upvotes: 2

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