wpf/Documentation/redistributables.md

Projects and Assemblies

This repository redistributes two assemblies.

- vcruntime140.dll
- d3dcompiler_47.dll 

Overview

WPF has two C++/CLI /clr:pure assemblies - DirectWriteForwarder.dll and System.Printing.dll.

/clr:pure assemblies have a dependeny on VC Runtime assemblies today - i.e., they require vcruntime140.dll (or vcruntime140d.dll when compiled in Debug mode).

This requires that end-users deploying WPF applications to install VC runtime redistributables. We would like to avoid this.

wpfgfx_cor3.dll - WPF's renderer - depends on d3dcompiler_47.dll - which is not available on all platforms (Operating Systems) universally. Some platforms have shipped d3dcompiler_47.dll via WU or Download Center and requires customers/consumers to download and install it manually.

We would like to assure that d3dcompiler_47.dll to be available at runtime along with WPF on .NET Core.

Both vcruntime140.dll and d3dcompiler_47.dll are redistributable assemblies, and we are allowed to bundle it with .NET Core 3.0 - and therefore we choose to redistribute these assemblies with our runtime assemblies.

Since applications are free to redistribute these assemblies as well, and sometimes they take dependences on specific versions of these assemblies, we should create a design that does not clash with application's choices. In order to acheive this, we rename the assemblies and change the import table in WPF assemblies to point to the renamed assemblies.

In other words,

 - vcruntime140.dll -> renamed to vcruntime140_cor3.dll 
 - d3dcompiler_47.dll -> renamed to d3dcompiler_47_cor3.dll 

The following files are used to orchestrate the renaming of DLL import tables, and copying of renamed assemblies and packaging them:

eng\WpfArcadeSdk\Redist.props
eng\WpfArcadeSdk\Redist.targets
src\Microsoft.DotNet.Wpf\redist\**\*