I'm Windows developer, I'm using Microsoft visual studio 2008 SP1. My developer machine is 64 bit.
The software I'm currently working on is managed .exe written in C#. Unfortunately, I was unable to solve the whole problem solely in C#. That's why I also developed a small managed DLL in C++/CLI. Both projects are in the same solution.
My C# .exe build target is "Any CPU". When my C++ DLL build target is "x86", the DLL is not loaded.
As far as I understood when I googled, the reason is C++/CLI language, unlike other .NET languages, compiles to the native code, not managed code.
I switched the C++ DLL build target to x64, and everything works now. However, AFAIK everything will stop working as soon as my client will install my product on a 32-bit OS. I have to support Windows Vista and 7, both 32 and 64 bit versions of each of them.
I don't want to fall back to 32 bits. That 250 lines of C++ code in my DLL is only 2% of my codebase. And that DLL is only used in several places, so in the typical usage scenario it's not even loaded.
My DLL implements two COM objects with ATL, so I can't use "/clr:safe" project setting.
Is there way to configure the solution and the projects so that C# project builds "Any CPU" version, the C++ project builds both 32 bit and 64 bit versions, then in the runtime when the managed .EXE is starting up, it uses either 32-bit DLL or 64-bit DLL depending on the OS?
Or maybe there's some better solution I'm not aware of?
Thanks in advance!
