Why Rust and why resvg? 

I all started with MysticThumbs! MysticThumbs (https://mysticcoder.net/MysticThumbs) is a super-powerful thumbnail-generator for Windows. It covers many file types Windows doesn't natively support. Even better, it has it's own plugin support concept, allowing programmers to create their own thumbnail-rendering plugin for one or more file types.

MysticThumbs does a great job on most formats, but I saw room for improvement on the rendering of the Scalable Vector Graphics formats SVG and SVGZ. This is where the SVG Plugin for MysticThumbs comes in as a C/C++ Visual Studio 2022 project, resulting in two DLLs named VCSVGPlugin64.mtp and VCSVGPlugin32.mtp (mtp is MysticThumbs plugin dll file extension).

Briefly the plugin uses resvg to render SVGs. resvg has been built as a statically linked library for both x64 and x86. This documents how.

Prepared for statically linked libraries for both x64 and Win32 (MSVC /MT)

This guide describes how to:

• Install the Rust toolchain on Windows 11
• Build resvg with its C API
• Produce statically linked libraries
• Support both x64 and Win32
• Link everything into a /MT-based C/C++ plugin (single DLL, no need for shipping resvg.dll)

The result is a self-contained binary suitable for plugin distribution (e.g. MysticThumbs).

1. Prerequisites

Required software

• Windows 11 - would probably work on anything VS2022 can run on too

• Visual Studio 2022 - I use community editon.

  • Workload: Desktop development with C++

  • Components:

    • MSVC v143

    • Windows 10/11 SDK

• Git for Windows (see https://git-scm.com/install/windows)

Recommended terminals

• x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022

• x86 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022

These ensure the correct MSVC toolchain is active.

Hint: Just start typing, such as "x64 Native" ... in the Windows Search-field

2. Install Rust using rustup (MSVC toolchain)

Download and run:

• https://rustup.rs/

Choose the default installation.

Verify installation:

rustup show
rustc --version
cargo --version

rustup default stable
rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
rustup target add i686-pc-windows-msvc

cd /d D:/Dev/Rust
git clone https://github.com/linebender/resvg.git
cd resvg

cargo install cargo-c

cargo cinstall --version

D:/Dev/Toolkits/resvg-capi/x64
D:/Dev/Toolkits/resvg-capi/x86

set PREFIX=D:/Dev/Toolkits/resvg-capi/x64
set RUSTFLAGS=-C target-feature=+crt-static
cargo cinstall --release --locked ^
 --manifest-path crates/c-api/Cargo.toml ^
 --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc ^
 --prefix %PREFIX%

D:/Dev/Toolkits/resvg-capi/x64
 ├─ include
 │ └─ resvg
 │ └─ resvg.h
 └─ lib
 └─ *.lib (static library)

set PREFIX=D:/Dev/Toolkits/resvg-capi/x86 
set RUSTFLAGS=-C target-feature=+crt-static
cargo cinstall --release --locked ^
 --manifest-path crates/c-api/Cargo.toml ^
  --target i686-pc-windows-msvc ^
   --prefix %PREFIX%

D:/Dev/Toolkits/resvg-capi/x86
 ├─ include
 │ └─ resvg
 │ └─ resvg.h
 └─ lib
 └─ *.lib (32-bit static library)

#include <resvg/resvg.h>

// Needed when linking resvg.lib (Rust std dependencies on Windows)
#pragma comment(lib, "Ws2_32.lib")
#pragma comment(lib, "Userenv.lib")
#pragma comment(lib, "ntdll.lib")
// resvg STATIC LINKED import library
// Specified in Project Properties -> Linker -> Additional Library Directories / Dependencies.
#pragma comment(lib, "resvg.lib")

dumpbin /dependents YourPlugin.dll

dumpbin /imports YourPlugin.dll
dumpbin /symbols YourPlugin.dll