Microsoft KB Archive/151501

= FIX: Linking Large Projects Can Be Very Slow =

Article ID: 151501

Article Last Modified on 11/17/2003

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APPLIES TO

 The Linker (LINK.EXE), when used with:  Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 Enterprise Edition

 Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 Professional Edition 

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This article was previously published under Q151501



SYMPTOMS
Linking a large project can take significantly longer than expected.



CAUSE
The linker version 5.00.7022 that was shipped with Visual C++ 5.0 does two types of optimizations to decrease the image size and increase the program speed. Transitive COMDAT Elimination(TCE) and Identical COMDAT Folding(ICF). TCE removes unreferenced COMDATs, while ICF folds identical COMDATs into one copy. The linker option for TCE is /OPT:REF and the option for ICF is /OPT:ICF. /OPT:REF, which is the default for the release build, turns on /OPT:ICF by default. Some applications cause ICF to proceed very slowly.



RESOLUTION
Turn off Identical COMDAT folding(ICF) by specifying /OPT:NOICF in your linker options.

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STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This bug has been corrected in Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 1.

For additional information about the Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 1, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

170365 INFO: Visual Studio 97 Service Packs - What, Where, and Why

Keywords: kbbug kbfix kbvs97sp1fix KB151501

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