The "LdrpWalkImportDescriptor() failed to probe XXX.dll for its manifest, ntstatus 0xc0150002" Error and Manifiests

I got this error the other day:

error: LDR: LdrpWalkImportDescriptor() failed to probe QtCored4.dll for its manifest, ntstatus 0xc0150002

I did some googling, and here's what I found out:

• The error may be a red herring, it's really a SideBySide DLL error. Look in the Event Viewer (see Control Panel, Administrative Tools) for the real error [Mombu, MSDN Social]. It turned out the Microsoft.VC80.DebugCRT DLL could not be found.
• Usually occurs because of missing DLLs, or DLLs with the incorrect version number (as specified in the DLL's manifest) on the deployment machine.
• Solutions:


• Recompile the offending DLL(s) [Nabble, Bytes]
• Recompile the offending DLL(s), but make sure the DLL project is configured to embed the manifest in the DLL. Have a look at the "dependentAssembly" tag in the generated YourDLLName.intermediate.manifest file. It must be the same as the "dependentAssembly" version in the manifest file generated for your EXE project. Make sure the same service packs are installed (i.e. same msvc) on the machine that built the DLL and the one that built the EXE [Trolltech Lists]
• Recompile the offending DLL(s), or download and install MSVC Redist SP1 [OpenCV Wiki]
  


• FAQ on manifests [CodeGuru]

Here's what worked for me: I checked the manifest file in the DLL that caused the error -- QtCore4d.dll in this example -- and noticed it required the Microsoft.VC80.DebugCRT DLL of a certain version. A colleague of mine compiled the DLL, so I had easy access to the manifest since an "intermediate" copy is stored in the DLL project's build directory. If that wasn't the case, I could use mt.exe from Microsoft to extract it from the DLL. I then inspected the manifest generated by Visual Studio when I compiled my EXE project. It turned out my EXE manifest required a version of the Microsoft.VC80.DebugCRT DLL that was older than that required by the QtCore4d.dll DLL, which means my machine had older DLLs than that required by QtCored4.dll. I simply applied a few Microsoft Visual Studio updates, recompiled my EXE project (not the DLL project), and the newly generated manifest showed the dependent DLL (Microsoft.VC80.DebugCRT) version to be the same as that in the QtCored4.dll manifest. Everything worked fine afterwards.