WinDepends – A Rewrite of the Dependency Walker

bratao | 157 points | 7mon ago | github.com

pjmlp|7mon ago

I never understood why those responsible for Windows SDK dropped Dependency Walker, instead of updating to the new Windows ways of dynamic libraries.

Most certainly they keep having similar tooling in Redmond.

emmanueloga_|7mon ago

I suspect there were no career improvement opportunities behind the effort, simple as that.

forrestthewoods|7mon ago

> instead of updating to the new Windows ways of dynamic libraries.

What does this mean?

pjmlp|7mon ago

API Sets, SxS manifests, Visual C++ linker delay loading, .NET Assembly loading and related fusion cache, UWP sandbox loading, are some examples of changes the original dependency walker isn't capable to handle.

mistagiggles|7mon ago

There is also this: https://github.com/lucasg/Dependencies Similar project for replacing the old dependency walker tool

blb2|7mon ago

This is the one I've been using and it's decent. I'm just worried that there hasn't been much activity in the repo and fear it's abandoned.

HexDecOctBin|7mon ago

I have been using this fork (https://github.com/lhak/Dependencies).

But I hate how this software comes with dozens of DLLs. I like to chuck these tools in sa single directory, and this is one that I have to put in a separate folder. DependencyWalker was better in this regard.

samiv|7mon ago

why not just use the original dependency walker then? It's minimal and if I remember correctly it's all in a self contained executable.

HexDecOctBin|7mon ago

It doesn't work on modern Windows (due to SxS IIRC)

Dwedit|7mon ago

It's API sets that broke it, not SxS.

You see these as the program trying to import nonexistent DLL files that start with the name "api-ms-win-". Dependency Walker can't handle those imports at all, it only deals with real DLL files.