[SOLVED] How do i remove the dependency of oledlg.dll from my DLL

How do i remove the dependency of oledlg.dll from my DLL

I'm analyzing a DLL using dumpbin and came across the following entry in its imports section:

    oledlg.dll  
              10273CD0 Import Address Table  
              102FB5B0 Import Name Table  
                     0 time date stamp  
                     0 Index of first forwarder reference  

                    3 OleUIBusyW

I want to remove the dependency of oledlg.dll from my application.

These are the libs in Linker -> Input:

Rpcrt4.lib;msi.lib;shlwapi.lib;Advapi32.lib;odbc32.lib;odbccp32.lib;Version.lib;

I found out oledlg.dll in DelayLoadDLLs section of my vcxproj. I removed it from there and rebuilt the DLL, but i still see it in /imports.

I added /VERBOSE:LIB in my Linker command line and it printed the following information:

5>    Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.19041.0\um\x86\Imm32.Lib:
5>    Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.19041.0\um\x86\WinMM.Lib:
5>    Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.19041.0\um\x86\oledlg.lib:
5>    Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.19041.0\um\x86\urlmon.lib:
5>    Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.19041.0\um\x86\msxml6.lib:

I also searched the "OleUIBusyW" but i don't see it being called anywhere. This dependency on oledlg.dll is causing my application to not work on Windows Server Core since oledlg.dll is not shipped with Server Core.

Solution

Set Project Properties -> Linker -> Optimization -> References -> Yes (/OPT:REF)

This prevents the explicit dependency on oledlg.dll even when not being used.