visual-studiodlldependency-walker

Find all modules with a dependency on a specific DLL


I know I can use tools like Dependency Walker (and newer rewrites) to answer the question "what DLL dependencies does X have?"

But I have about 100 modules built in our solution, and from years ago zlib.dll is added into our release. I want to find out which (if any) of our modules require this old DLL without running dependency walker on each.

Is there a way to do this easily?


Solution

  • That can be done by writing a script (a bat file, or PowerShell script) that enumerates all your module DLLs and uses CLI of dependency walker.

    The command line, that prints all dependent modules for a DLL looks like this: ./depends.exe /pl:1 /oc:./depends.csv ./depends.dll

    And then simple text search within the file to find the zlib.dll in the output CSV.

    File enumeration can be done as described here.