[ Note: this post was updated on Dec 2, 2009 to correct dashes. In the original post, dash dash -- was showing up as a single dash. This is noted in the comments and has been corrected in the text below.]

These are very (very) basic instructions for setting up a very simple application with Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express to use the MySQL Embedded Library (libmysqld).

The MySQL Embedded Library is a full version of the server that is available as a dynamic or static library.  Developers can run the library inside their application.  It’s extremely fast, easy to distribute and it’s ideal for stand-alone applications.  More information about the library can be found at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/libmysqld.html

Having little experience using Visual C++, I’ve struggled to find instructions for setting up a project to use a dynamic library.  I finally got it to work thanks to …