How to link statically with the CRT

Question

I have the following 'hello world' NASM assembly code

bits 64
default rel

segment .data
    msg db "Hello world!", 0

segment .text
global main

extern puts

main:
    sub     rsp, 40

    lea     rcx, [msg]
    call    puts

    xor     rax, rax
    add     rsp, 40
    ret

and I can build the code with the following commands

nasm -f win64 -gcv8 -o hello.obj hello.asm
link hello.obj /subsystem:console /entry:main /defaultlib:msvcrt.lib /defaultlib:ucrt.lib /defaultlib:Kernel32.lib /nologo /incremental:no /opt:noref /debug /pdb:hello.pdb /out:hello.exe

Everything works but I would prefer to link with the CRT statically. I'm trying the following link step instead, using what I think are the correct libraries.

link hello.obj /subsystem:console /entry:main /defaultlib:libcmt.lib /defaultlib:libucrt.lib /defaultlib:Kernel32.lib /nologo /incremental:no /opt:noref /debug /pdb:hello.pdb /out:hello.exe

Although the link succeeds, the program produces no output when run. There's also a noticable pause when it runs, I assume it's crashing.

What am I doing wrong? What do I need to do differently to statically link with the C runtime?

Thanks

How to link statically with the CRT

0 Answers