Creating an MFC Library in Visual Studio

Question

As far as I can tell, Visual Studio 2008 provides two ways to create an MFC DLL:

• New Project → MFC DLL
• New project -> Win32 project -> select DLL, export symbols and MFC

What is the difference? Both methods seem to generate completely different start code. The second methods seem to generate the code that I expect to see for the DLL. Thanks.

Answer 1

The first creates what is called the MFC " Extension DLL ". The main difference here is that this DLL is only available for MFC programs and other DLLs that use MFC. Its open interface can transfer MFC types between a DLL and its clients.

The second creates a " Regular DLL " that references the MFC. It can use MFC internally, but it provides an MFC-independent interface, so non-MFC programs can also use it.

There are more differences that you can read about on related pages.