How do I find out which dlls an executable will load?

dll executable
David Norman picture David Norman · Jan 24, 2009 · Viewed 96.2k times · Source

If I have a Windows executable, how can I find out which dlls it will load?

I'm just talking about which ones that will be loaded statically, not ones it might load dynamically with something like LoadLibrary.

Answer

Graeme Perrow picture Graeme Perrow · Jan 24, 2009

dumpbin is a tool that comes with VC++.

To see what DLLs a program will import:

  • Open Visual Studio
  • Menu Item Tools | Visual Studio Command prompt
  • cd to folder containing executable
  • dumpbin /dependents whatever.exe
Dump of file whatever.exe

File Type: EXECUTABLE IMAGE

  Image has the following dependencies:

    AIOUSB.DLL
    sqlite3.dll
    wxmsw293u_core_vc_custom.dll
    wxbase293u_vc_custom.dll
    KERNEL32.dll
    ole32.dll
    OLEAUT32.dll
    MSVCP90.dll
    MSVCR90.dll

To see what functions (and DLLs) it will import, use 

C:\> dumpbin /imports whatever.exe

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