The Universal CRT is a Microsoft Windows operating system component. Visual Studio 2015 and later versions of Visual Studio all use one Universal CRT. Beginning in Visual Studio 2015, this is no longer the case. For example, the CRT library used by Visual Studio 2012 was version 11, named msvcr110.dll, and the CRT used by Visual Studio 2013 was version 12, named msvcr120.dll. These standalone versions of the CRT were independent from, and to various degrees, incompatible with each other. NET through Visual Studio 2013, each major release of the C++ compiler and tools has included a new, standalone version of the Microsoft C Runtime (CRT) library. This is different from all previous Visual C++ versions, as they each had their own distinct runtime files, not shared with other versions.Ī support article on Microsoft's Docs website provides further information:įrom Visual Studio. However, installing the Visual C++ 2015 redistributable will not replace the newer versions of the files installed by the Visual C++ 20 redistributables. Microsoft provides the following example on the 'The latest supported Visual C++ downloads' support page.įor example, installing the Visual C++ 2019 redistributable will affect programs built with Visual C++ 20 also. In other words: if the Visual C++ 2019 redistributable is installed on a system, it is no longer necessary to install the Visual C++ 2015 or 2017 redistributable packages as these are supported automatically as well. A baseline image is provided for these redistributable packages so that it is no longer necessary to install different versions separately on target systems. Microsoft changed the system significantly with the release of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 20. Redistributables are stored in a central location so that any program installed on the system may access the files if required.Â You can check out our detailed guide on Visual C++ Redistributables here for additional details. security updates, or manually by the system administrator. It is not uncommon to see multiple Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables on a system that were installed by software programs, through updates, e.g.

Visual c++ redistributable 2015