How to create a single static library from several static libraries?

Question

We recently converted a C ++ project from Visual Studio 6 to Visual Studio 8. Everything went well until we reached the compilation of the project, which put all the static libraries in one large static library. By default, after the conversion between the two versions of the projects, the project did nothing (a large static library was not created, it only said that the project was relevant).

We found a working solution by adding a dummy (empty) file to the project (before it had no other files in the Visual Studio 6 solution). Everything went well, and we were able to compile the project with a new development environment (Visual Studio 8).

My question is: is there any other way to do this without dummy files added to the project?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Answer 1

You can use the method described in the nobugz answer, also with several configurations and different directories for debugging and releasing input libraries. Just add all the input libraries, debug and release, and use "exclude from build". Exclude all lib release attachments from the assembly in the debug configuration, exclude all input debug libraries in the release configuration.