I have an application that installed and ran fine on Windows server 2008 r2 Core when it was written in C++ VS2005. However, to cope with new Windows platforms, I have had to rebuild my application in C++ VS 2012. Now, without any other functional changes, I can no longer install my app in Server 2008 r2 core. The installer invokes several custom actions that reside in one of my C++ DLLs. Using depends.exe, I can see that the problem is that my DLL now has a dependency on oledlg.dll which is not part of server core.

What is the best way to obtain this DLL? I can copy it over from a Windows Server 2008 r2 GUI system and that fixes my problem but this isn't very elegant. I am also not impressed by the fact that this is a problem caused by VS 2012 rather than anything I have done. BTW - I also installed the VS 2012 Redistributables on my core system but this did not have any effect.

Hi Weebo,

Server core version is a basic system which you only install the few services and components that you need.
We can find this .dll file under the folder "C:\Windows\System32" and "C:\Windows\SysWOW64" on the Server with GUI. However, it isn't located on servser core, and the available DLLs with Server Core can be checked here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms723876.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

I would like to suggest you can go on with the workaround on Server core or install this app on full installation server.

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Best Regards,

Anna Wang

TechNet Community Support