Linking dll in Visual Studio

On Windows you do not link with a .dll file directly – you must use the accompanying .lib file instead. To do that go to Project -> Properties -> Configuration Properties -> Linker -> Additional Dependencies and add path to your .lib as a next line.

You also must make sure that the .dll file is either in the directory contained by the %PATH% environment variable or that its copy is in Output Directory (by default, this is Debug\Release under your project's folder).

If you don't have access to the .lib file, one alternative is to load the .dll manually during runtime using WINAPI functions such as LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress.

You don't add or link directly against a DLL, you link against the LIB produced by the DLL.

A LIB provides symbols and other necessary data to either include a library in your code (static linking) or refer to the DLL (dynamic linking).

To link against a LIB, you need to add it to the project Properties -> Linker -> Input -> Additional Dependencies list. All LIB files here will be used in linking. You can also use a pragma like so:

#pragma comment(lib, "dll.lib")

With static linking, the code is included in your executable and there are no runtime dependencies. Dynamic linking requires a DLL with matching name and symbols be available within the search path (which is not just the path or system directory).