LINK May Incorrectly Generate L2049 for a Resource-Only DLL

ID Number: Q73663

5.03 5.05 5.10 5.11 | 5.03 5.05 5.10 5.11

MS-DOS | OS/2

buglist5.03 buglist5.05 buglist5.10 buglist5.11 fixlist5.13

Summary:

The Microsoft LINK utility versions 5.03, 5.05, 5.10, and 5.11 will

generate the following error if you attempt to link a resource-only

DLL that contains no code or data:

LINK: error L2049: no segments defined

Although a valid DLL is created in this case, these versions of LINK

set the error bit in the DLL's header and return an error code to the

calling program.

Beginning with LINK version 5.13, the L2049 error was converted to a

warning and the error bit is no longer set in the output file. To work

around the problem with LINK 5.03, 5.05, 5.10, or 5.11, the EXEHDR

utility may be used to reset the error bit in the header.

More Information:

A resource-only DLL does not contain code or data--it is only used to

store bitmaps, menus, fonts, and other static resources, but LINK

versions 5.03, 5.05, 5.10, and 5.11 flag the lack of segments with an

L2049 error and mark the output file as invalid.

To use the DLL, you can use EXEHDR to turn off the error bit by

invoking it with the /RESET option. For example:

EXEHDR /RESET RESOURCE.DLL

The most efficient method is to add this statement to the description

block in your makefile that contains the LINK command. For example:

test.dll: test.obj test.def

link test,test.dll,,,test.def;

exehdr /reset test.dll

Note that in order to stop NMAKE from terminating with the error code

from LINK, you should use either the /I (ignore exit codes) switch

when invoking NMAKE, specify the .IGNORE directive inside the

makefile, or add a dash (-) before the LINK command to indicate that

processing the makefile should continue even if there is an error with

the link step. See your NMAKE documentation for further information

about the /I option, the .IGNORE directive, and the dash operator.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in LINK versions 5.03,

5.05, 5.10, and 5.11. This problem was corrected in LINK version 5.13.