DCompositionCreateDevice2: E_INVALIDARG One or more arguments are invalid

Question

Having an unusual problem running Win32C++ source codes with the function DCompositionCreateDevice2, which is compiled with VS 2015. The source codes compile without any error but display the above runtime error. Recompiling and running the same source codes with VS 2019, there is no runtime error. The test sample codes are Windows SDK samples listed below: TouchInputDirectManipulation

DCompV2BackfaceandD2DBatching

Any idea what could be the source of this problem? I am working on WTL open source project, and do not want to restrict the build environment to VS 2019.

Answer 1

This is actually an unusual issue... What happens is Microsoft has seriously messed up dcomp.lib between the Windows 8.1 SDK and the Windows 10 SDK.

Here is what you see if you dump the Windows 8.1 SDK dcomp.lib exports:

C:\>dumpbin "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Lib\winv6.3\um\x64\dcomp.lib" /exports
Microsoft (R) COFF/PE Dumper Version 14.28.29914.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

     Exports

       ordinal    name

                  DCompositionCreateDevice
          1017    DCompositionCreateDevice2
                  DCompositionCreateSurfaceHandle
              
              

And here is what you see if you dump the Windows 10 SDK dcomp.lib exports:

C:\>dumpbin "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Lib\10.0.19041.0\um\x64\dcomp.lib" /exports
Microsoft (R) COFF/PE Dumper Version 14.28.29914.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

     Exports

       ordinal    name

                  DCompositionAttachMouseDragToHwnd
                  DCompositionAttachMouseWheelToHwnd
                  DCompositionCreateDevice
                  DCompositionCreateDevice2
                  DCompositionCreateDevice3
                  DCompositionCreateSurfaceHandle
                

As you can see the DCompositionCreateDevice2 was defined with ordinal 1017 initially. When you build your program using the Windows 8.1 SDK (which is how theses samples are currently defined), you get that using dumpbin:

C:\>dumpbin c:\mypath\TouchInputDirectManipulation\cpp\x64\Debug\DirectManipulationSample.exe /imports
Microsoft (R) COFF/PE Dumper Version 14.28.29914.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

  Section contains the following imports:

    dcomp.dll
             140054570 Import Address Table
             140054E98 Import Name Table
                     0 time date stamp
                     0 Index of first forwarder reference

                             Ordinal  1017

So, your .exe is linked to ordinal 1017, not to exported name DCompositionCreateDevice2.

The problem is, with Windows 10 (I think you're running on Windows 10), dcomp ordinal 1017 is not DCompositionCreateDevice2 but DCompositionAttachMouseDragToHwnd! This can be confirmed if you debug your program, you land into that function that doesn't like what you send to it and reports E_INVALIDARG.

So the solution is to change the SDK if you target Windows 10:

Or simply use GetProcAddress("DCompositionCreateDevice2") etc. to dcomp.dll to make sure you get the good one.

This should be reported to Microsoft I guess...