# I solved a error that the exe couldn't find dll files!

**URL:** <https://discourse.vtk.org/t/i-solved-a-error-that-the-exe-couldnt-find-dll-files/14881>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [November 15, 2024, 12:45pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/i-solved-a-error-that-the-exe-couldnt-find-dll-files/14881 "2024-11-15T12:45:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Etzka](https://discourse.vtk.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Etzka](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Etzka)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 12:45pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/i-solved-a-error-that-the-exe-couldnt-find-dll-files/14881/1 "2024-11-15T12:45:41Z")

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Just add the bin\Release directory in VTK shared lib to system environment variable!

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/lassoan/32/50_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 1:32pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/i-solved-a-error-that-the-exe-couldnt-find-dll-files/14881/2 "2024-11-15T13:32:03Z")

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Thanks for sharing. Adding development binary folders to the system paths can lead to many issues. For example, you may have two VTK builds on your computer and all the applications that are built with the VTK version that is not listed first in the system paths will crash.

Instead, a safe solution for debugging is to right-click on the executable in the `Solution Explorer` window in Visual Studio, click `Properties`, and in `Debugging` section, set your path in the `Environment` field, adding something like `PATH=c:\d\VTK\bin\Release`. You can specify a different path for Debug and Release.

A safe solution for releasing your software is to copy the VTK .dll files into the same folder as your .exe file is.