Application crashing on Windows XP SP2

[Askr]

Hi there,

I've been distributing several demos of my roguelike in development and it appears that people with Windows XP (x32 bit) Service Pack 2 can't run it. The Application simply crashes with the following message:
"ConsoleApplication1 has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."
screenshot with some other data

I compiled with Visual C# 2010 Express on Windows7 x64 bit. I already ruled out problems with the .NET Framework, since applications not involving libtcod can be run without problems. I also created a test-application with libtcod doing nothing but initialiasing the root Console with SDL as renderer, but it still crashes.

Does anyone have a solution?
Thanks in advance

[donblas]

You should confirm that those machines have the correct .NET version installed, that generally causes crashes like this and happens more often on older machines.

[Askr]

They should have the newest available installed. Version is 4.0.30319.

[donblas]

You don't need the latest version, you need the version you are targetting. If your exe is targetting .net 3.5 for example, having 4.0 is not helpful.

[Askr]

At first I had it target 4.0 Client Profile, but changing to 4.0 or even 3.5 didn't change anything. Trying to compile it below 3.5 doesn't work.

Running the game on Windows Vista or 7 is no problem, by the way.

[donblas]

"Running the game on Windows Vista or 7 is no problem, by the way."

Windows Vista and above have multiple .NET framework version pre-installed.

Try running this installer and try again?

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17851

[Askr]

The system we've been testing on also had the 3.5 version installed. The installer you linked at is exactly what my friend installed. Maybe I'm doing something wrong in Visual Studio?
Properties of the test project.

[donblas]

Strange. From the outside it sounds like you are doing the right things.

You could try this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/kbarticle.aspx?id=318785 and see what versions are installed on the working and non-working machines.

I'm kinda out of obvious ideas beyond that, you might have to get a copy of visual studio express installed and launch attached.

[jice]

Is the .NET framework the only dependency ? Doesn't it require Visual Studio Runtime stuff ?

[Askr]

Is the .NET framework the only dependency ? Doesn't it require Visual Studio Runtime stuff ?

Wow, thanks. That was the right hint. My friend installed the c++ runtime (we considered this, but since it doesn't say c# we didn't look further into it) and now it works.

[donblas]

Nice catch jice. I forgot about that.