Skip to content

A rewrite of the old legacy software "depends.exe" in C# for Windows devs to troubleshoot dll load dependencies issues.

License

Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

zewt/Dependencies

 
 

Repository files navigation

Dependencies - An open-source modern Dependency Walker

Build status

NB : due to limitations on /clr compilation, Dependencies needs Visual C++ Redistributable installed to run properly.

Usage Exemple

Overview

Dependencies is a rewrite of the legacy software Dependency Walker which was shipped along Windows SDKs, but whose development stopped around 2006. Dependencies can help Windows developers troubleshooting their dll load dependencies issues.

Releases

  • v1.9 :
    • Display imports and exports the way Depends.exe does.
    • Added user customization for search folders and working directory
    • Added LLVM demangler to availables symbol demangling
    • Fixed Wow64 FsRedirection bugs
    • F5 can now refresh the analysis
    • Added CLR assembly dependencies enumeration
    • Added a packaging option without Peview.exe (which triggers some AV).
  • v1.8 :
    • Add x86/x64 variants for Dependencies
  • v1.7 :
    • Add CLI tool "dependencies.exe"
  • v1.6 :
    • Add appx packaging
  • v1.5 :
    • Support of Sxs parsing
    • Support of api set schema parsing
    • API and Modules list can be filtered
  • v1.0 -- Initial release

Installation and Usage

Dependencies is currently shipped as a binary (no installer present). Just click on one of the release numbers above (probably the latest), download and uncompress the archive and run DependenciesGui.exe. Since the binary is not signed, SmartScreen might scream at runtime. Dependencies also bundle ClrPhTester.exe, a dumpbin-like executable used to test for non-regressions.

Dependencies currently does not recursively resolve child imports when parsing a new PE since it can be really memory-hungry to do so ( it can over a GB even for "simple" PEs ). This behavior can be overridden (app-wide) via a property located in "Options->Properties->Tree build behaviour".

User options

Tree build behaviours available :

  • ChildOnly (default) : only process PE child imports and nothing beyond.
  • RecursiveOnlyOnDirectImports : do not process delayload dlls.
  • Recursive : Full recursive analysis. You better have time and RAM on your hands if you activate this setting :

Yes that's 7 GB of RAM being consumed. I'm impressed the application didn't even crash

Limitations

At the moment, Dependencies recreates features and "features" of depends.exe, which means :

  • Only direct, forwarded and delay load dependencies are supported. Dynamic loading via LoadLibrary are not supported (and probably won't ever be).
  • Support of api set schema redirection since 1.5
  • Checks between Api Imports and Exports.
  • Minimal support of sxs private manifests search only.

Building

Building is pretty straightforward. The only caveat is you need to select the "Debug" or "Release" configuration and "x64" or "x86" platform which may not be the default.

Credits and licensing

Special thanks to :

About

A rewrite of the old legacy software "depends.exe" in C# for Windows devs to troubleshoot dll load dependencies issues.

Resources

License

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Packages

No packages published

Languages

  • C# 76.8%
  • C++ 18.6%
  • PowerShell 3.4%
  • C 1.2%