[drv]

In practice, this is probably correct (Microsoft cares a lot about backward compatibility, and many programs depend on MSVCRT.DLL).

However, the official word from Microsoft is that MSVCRT.DLL is only intended for operating system components to use, not user applications. For example, see Raymond Chen's blog on the subject. [1]

[1] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20140411-00/?p=...

[cesarb]

The problem is that their official word changed.

As that link itself says, MSVCRT.DLL was the C library for several versions of their official C compiler. That is, it had always been intended for both operating system components and user applications. A quick Wikipedia search tells me that this was true until 2002, which is when MSVC 7 was released.

Wikipedia also tells me that MinGW (which is probably the main source of programs linking to MSVCRT.DLL nowadays) was first released in 1998, so their use of MSVCRT.DLL as the global C library was correct. It's not MinGW's fault that Microsoft changed their mind.