Deploying Qt 5 App on Windows

Starting from Qt 5.2, there is windeployqt tool you can use. Just run it from command line to get help. But basic usage is, give it the .exe file, it will copy Qt dependencies to go with it.

You will want to use --qmldir option to let the tool know where your QML files are, so it can figure out the needed QML dependencies.

Note about testing: to make sure you have everything, test in computer with no Qt SDK, or temporarily rename the Qt directory. Otherwise the application might find missing files from there...

After some hours digging in the Qt Forums, I found out that I need to copy the "qml" folder (normally located in C:/Qt/5.2.1/qml) to the application's root directory. After doing so, both the dynamic and static versions of my application worked on vanilla systems.

Program directory (MinGW 4.8 32-bit, dynamic):

As hyde said, use the windeployqt tool (<qt path>\<version>\bin\windeployqt.exe) to copy the necessary files to your application's folder. After that, copy the required QML components from <qt path>\<version>\qml\ to your application's folder. The resulting folder should look similar to:

• platforms (folder)
• QtQuick (folder)
• QtQuick.2 (folder)
• Any other QML components that you need
• app.exe
• icudt51.dll
• icuin51.dll
• icuuc51.dll
• libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll
• libstdc++-6.dll
• libwindthread-1.dll
• Qt5Core.dll
• Qt5Gui.dll
• Qt5Qml.dll
• Qt5Quick.dll
• Qt5Network.dll
• Qt5Widgets.dll

Program directory (static)

Compile the application statically, then copy the required QML components from <qt path>\<version>\qml\ to your application's folder. The resulting folder should look similar to:

• QtQuick (folder)
• QtQuick.2 (folder)
• Any other QML components that you need
• app.exe

I think the cause for the crash was that the Qt5Gui.dll (dynamic and static) "tried" to load the QtQuick* folders during run time, but could not find them (thus crashing the application during load).