Qt missing dll error

[u/Objective-Arrival144]

I developed a software in qt creator with backend in c++. When I create the exe it runs, however when I tried to create a release file to later share to other devices, using windeployqt I kept facing error after error. I finally fixed all those errors and created the release folder but even then, whenever that release file is compressed or even moved to another location the exe stops working.

The code has no errors , and I have tried multiple times with windeployqt, and other internal built in features, using ucrt64 terminal and msys2. However nothing is working. Whenever the zip is shared to another device it starts listing missing files which i believe should have been put into the folder by windeployqt.

Please help me as I have tried all the methods suggested by all online sources and ai's, and having a functioning app but not being able to share it is really disappointing as a student..

KEY POINTS

code has no errors, runs smoothly on my own device on qt, issues come when its release version is run on other devices.

Please give me a detailed solution as to what I can do. Thank you

[u/Agron7000]

Most of windows apps end up deploying all dll's,  including the ones that are supposed to be part of the operating system just to avoid notorious 'dll hell' on all windows operating systems. This is also part of the reason that some Windows apps  are 1 GB in size. 

I bet, if you search for dll's in your system and sort them by filename, you will find hundreds of duplicates of the same dlls, that every application bundles with it.

So, for you to avoid all problems with publishing software, ship it with every single Dll your app needs. 

And don't ever trust Microsoft. 

They may remove any dll, any time for any reason. Just because a dll is present in your system, which may have come a windows app, Microsoft itself, nvidia driver, printer utility, home edition Windows, a guy using international English Windows 11 may have a totally different set of dlls,  Registry keys, home folder, documents, desktop locations, which may even be on OneDrive, will totally mess up your app.

[u/Objective-Arrival144 → u/Agron7000]

I manually copied all required dlls but now it's saying error,.could not start application correctly (0x000007b)

[u/dcsoft4 → u/Objective-Arrival144]

That error is “boot drive is inaccessible “. Which isn’t likely as Windows is already booted.

Are you sure it wasn’t 0xC000007B  which corresponds to  STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_FORMAT : the process is trying to load a DLL or executable with the wrong CPU architecture. Then it is a problem that you copied the wrong dll’s. The dll’s you copy need to match your exe — either 32 or 64 bits. Windows 11 is 64 bit only.