Application fails to launch via Visual Studio 2003 - CURLE_NOT_BUILT_IN Curl error displayed in debugger

Question

We have a legacy MFC based application in our company which is built with Visual C++98 on Visual Studio 2003. We use curl for Http requests. libcurl.lib file is linked into the project. I see 2 behaviors while executing the HTTP requests.

1. When we launch the application from Visual studio or the bin folder directly, I get an CURLE_NOT_BUILT_IN error and the application refuses to proceed further.
2. When the application is packaged and installed in another folder via an installer, the application runs perfectly fine. 0 issues whatsoever.

Can anyone help me understand why the application fails to launch via the Visual studio?

Note: libcurl.lib file has been in the repository since ages. Also, this issue propped up recently. It was working fine 2 weeks ago and affects only my computer.

Answer 1

I figured out what the issue was.

libcurl.dll was missing the bin/rel folder and hence CURL was throwing the error CURLE_NOT_BUILT_IN. I have manually copied the file to that folder and the application is working well