Update min required Visual C++ runtime from 2015 to 2019

[amaitland]

CEF is dropping support for compiling the C++ wrapper with Visual Studio 2015/2017 see https://groups.google.com/g/cef-announce/c/IMgnaeWipwc/m/so6nGWgWBgAJ for details.

As a flow on from we will be forced to migrate from Visual C++ 2015 as the minimum to Visual C++ 2019 runtime. A lot of users will already have the Visual C++ 2015-2019 runtime, so no action will be required.

I will provide further updates once M93 builds are available and I can confirm exactly what changes are required.

• Update release notes
• Update General Usage
• Update FAQ
• Update Readme.md

For those using the .Net Core 3.1/.Net 5.0 packages VC++ 2019 is already required.

[amaitland]

Include include/base/cef_callback.h instead of include/base/cef_bind.h

As per https://groups.google.com/g/cef-announce/c/IMgnaeWipwc/m/so6nGWgWBgAJ we should use cef_callback.h instead. https://github.com/cefsharp/CefSharp/blob/master/CefSharp.Core.Runtime/RequestContext.cpp#L17

Note the following required changes to client code:

scoped_ptr → std::unique_ptr from . Related usage changes:

x.Pass() → std::move(x)
make_scoped_ptr → std::make_unique
scoped_ptr(x) → base::WrapUnique(x) from include/base/cef_ptr_util.h
OVERRIDE → override

arraysize → base::size from include/base/cef_cxx17_backports.h (or std::size with C++17)
NULL → nullptr (in most cases)
Include include/base/cef_callback.h instead of include/base/cef_bind.h (in most cases)
Implicit conversion of CefRefPtr or scoped_refptr to T* is gone; use x.get() instead

• Replace OVERRIDE with override (b24cd8e)
• Replace NULL with nullptr (a18637f)

Some of these changes will happen before upgrade to keep the changes in a single commit to a more reviewable size.

Branch https://github.com/cefsharp/CefSharp/tree/upgrade/93 has the work in process, it should compile, it won't run just yet. There is an incompatibility between our C++/CLI classes and the new IMPLEMENT_REFCOUNTING implementation. It looks like the use of atomic forces the class to be a native class instead of a mixed mode class.

• Write a custom macro for ref counting (commit 911e856).

There are also a lot of other cleanup tasks

• Remove the old compiler nuget packages
• Update build scripts to remove old now unsupported versions of Visual Studio
• Update ref counting macro to use CompareExchange

[amaitland]

I will provide further updates once M93 builds are available and I can confirm exactly what changes are required.

Beta builds of version 93 are now available on https://cef-builds.spotifycdn.com/index.html

As expected attempting to build with VS2015/VS2019 failed.

As a result CefSharp will now require VS2019 to compile, Visual C++ 2019 will now be the new minimum (Visual Studio 2022 is in preview and I expect that Visual C++ 2020 will be backwards compatible).

[amaitland]

For those that have the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019 installed then no change will be required.

For those that have an older VC++ 2015/2017 installation there are a two options:

• Install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019 runtime (
• Include the VC++ 2019 dlls with your application (Local Deployment).

Local Deployment
As you should already have the Universal CRT installed as you previous had VC++ 2015/2017 installed (Universal CRT is also included as part of Windows 10 by default) you can bin deploy the VC++ 2019 dlls alongside your application.

The following should copy the VC++ runtime into the bin/publish folders when run under Visual Studio (won't work from the command line). NOTE: ClickOnce will need different targets to add the files.

For x86/x64:

  <Import Project="$(DevEnvDir)..\..\VC\Auxiliary\Build\Microsoft.VCToolsVersion.default.props"/>
  
  <Target Name="IncludeVisualCppInOutFolder" AfterTargets="ResolveReferences">
    <PropertyGroup>
      <_VCRedistLocation>$(DevEnvDir)..\..\VC\Redist\MSVC\$(VCToolsRedistVersion)\$(PlatformTarget)\Microsoft.VC142.CRT</_VCRedistLocation>
    </PropertyGroup>
    <Message Importance="high" Text="_VCRedistLocation = $(_VCRedistLocation)" />
    <ItemGroup>
      <ReferenceCopyLocalPaths Include="$(_VCRedistLocation)\**\*" />
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>

For AnyCPU:

<Import Project="$(DevEnvDir)..\..\VC\Auxiliary\Build\Microsoft.VCToolsVersion.default.props"/>

<Target Name="IncludeVisualCppInOutFolder" AfterTargets="ResolveReferences">
    <PropertyGroup>
      <_VCRedistLocation32bit>$(DevEnvDir)..\..\VC\Redist\MSVC\$(VCToolsRedistVersion)\x86\Microsoft.VC142.CRT</_VCRedistLocation32bit>
      <_VCRedistLocation64bit>$(DevEnvDir)..\..\VC\Redist\MSVC\$(VCToolsRedistVersion)\x64\Microsoft.VC142.CRT</_VCRedistLocation64bit>
    </PropertyGroup>
    <Message Importance="high" Text="_VCRedistLocation32bit = $(_VCRedistLocation32bit)" />
    <Message Importance="high" Text="_VCRedistLocation64bit = $(_VCRedistLocation64bit)" />
    <ItemGroup>
      <_VCRedistFiles32bit Include="$(_VCRedistLocation32bit)\**\*"/>
      <_VCRedistFiles64bit Include="$(_VCRedistLocation64bit)\**\*"/>
      <ReferenceCopyLocalPaths Include="@(_VCRedistFiles32bit)" DestinationSubDirectory="x86\" />
      <ReferenceCopyLocalPaths Include="@(_VCRedistFiles64bit)" DestinationSubDirectory="x64\" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

Visual C++ Runtime
Details on deploying/redistributing the Visual C++ 2019 runtime .

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/deployment-in-visual-cpp?view=msvc-160#local-deployment
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/redistributing-visual-cpp-files?view=msvc-160
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/determining-which-dlls-to-redistribute?view=msvc-160

Universal CRT
For those looking for more detail on the Universal CRT

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/universal-crt-deployment?view=vs-2019
• https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/introducing-the-universal-crt/