Migrate an application from x86 to x64. Compiling succeed, but can not run. Always start with error 0xc0000142.

Question

platform: windows server 2008 r2; ide: visual studio 2005 (installed the x64 development kit)
Hi, everyone.
I want to migrate my application to x64 platform from x86/win32 platform. I added x64 platform in visual c++ 2005 option, and compiled successfully. But the application can not start. When start it always pop up an alert dialog saying "The application
was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). Click OK to close the application."  Meanwhile, it's worked well when I use win32 option to compile.
Someone says online, the dependency walker can detect some root cause. I used it, and found that IEFRAME.dll may be had some problem because when I double click it, pop up a dialogue saying "Errors were detected when processing "c:\windows\system32\IEFRAME.DLL".
See the log window for details.". But I can not resolve this issue.
Please help me.

Answer 1

If I had to try to solve this:
I'd start by verifying that I can compile, and run a skeleton x64 Windows app.  Just create one from scratch using the Windows Application project template, add the x64 platform, build it and run.  Hopefully all goes well.
If that works, then I'd try trimming down your app to just its essentials.  If you're not using revision control software, back up your projects now, because once you find the problem by hacking and slashing, you'll want to revert so you can make a
clean fix.
The first thing to do here is just put a return 0; in the beginning of WinMain to see if it's code at runtime that's causing the problem or something about the linking and dependent library loading.
I'm guessing that, even with return 0, you will still have a problem, which would suggest that you are perhaps still linking against a 32-bit version of a library or something like that.  Start removing dependencies or references or libraries until
you can build and run your stripped-down application.  Eventually you'll find the one reference/library that causes it to fail to load.
You can also check the debug window to see if some modules loaded correctly and others not.
You can also run
Process Monitor (sysinternals) to see which dll it was accessing when it failed to load.
Make sure you revert any changes you made while hacking and slashing, then make your platform fixes, and have another go.
I suspect that eventually you'll find that you've added a link library that is a 32-bit .lib or a component that references a 32-bit library.  You'll have to make sure you specify the x64 .libs for whatever libraries you are using.  Sometimes this
means that you have to change you additional linker directories to point to the x64 libs instead of the x86/win32 libs.  Be very careful about your platform when specifying linker libraries, directories, etc.
It could also be that the x64 version of a dll has been copied to your output folder rather than the x86 version, assuming they have the same name.  You'll have to sort out your SDKs and get the right .libs and .dlls.
Make sure that your settings and property pages are set correctly for Release and Debug, and for x86 and x64.