(note this reply might not use accurate terms, but it's just to explain some general principle) visual studio DLLs. I assume you mean the C runtime etc, which

(note this reply might not use accurate terms, but it's just to explain some general principle) visual studio DLLs. I assume you mean the C runtime etc, which isn't tied to VS but to 'build tools' i.e. compiler/linker. VS just uses those. It can also use other non-MS compiler/linker. So why can't Visual Studio compile to something that works by default It largely can, see next answer. on the Windows of the target audience without requiring them to install those additional DLLs? I think (not 100% sure though) because there were historically different versions of those. And as said possibly from different compiler vendors. See also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16167305/why-does-my-application-require-visual-c-redistributable-package https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16167305/why-does-my-app... But: things changed somewhat since then though, there's now a 'universal C runtime' which gets installed with Windows 10 and which covers versions of the runtime used per default by the built tools which ship with VS2015 and beyond. Which given the history is quite a piece of work they pulled off. how did those programs get compiled to not require those Visual Studio dependencies, Static linking.