Library ABI compatibility between versions of Visual Studio

Question

I have two scenarios. Suppose I have 3 shared libraries that export C++ symbols, each built with VS7.1, VS8, and VS9. I compile all 3 in VS9. For some reason, this works. I

Answer 1

extern "C" exported symbols are different from C++ symbols. C++ has name mangling (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_mangling).

The mangling of C++ symbols may vary from compiler version to compiler version, so in your VS7/8/9 setup, the same C++ method name may be mangled to different names.

Basically, your team seems to be right - you will be locked in the same major version of the compiler that was used to compile your library.