Thanks for very prompt reply and apologies for my extremely late
answer. Due to the current situation, I now have much more time
to work on this.
In short, I upgraded to the most recent (1.20.1) LDC compiler,
the most recent (0.52.0) Visual D, but am staying with VS 2017.
When I try to compile and link with "Release", the linker
unresolved symbols problem goes away. (Things which are too good
to be true usually are)
When I try to compile and link with "Debug", I'm back to a
similar state as before. (429 errors, 175 unresolved externals)
I also tried adding a small .cpp file thinking it might trick the
linker setup to add more files and libraries, I got more (455)
errors.
When I save the linker output /VERBOSE:lib and compare the linker
output, I have appended what stands out: (that is, missing from
Debug yet present in Release)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\ws2_32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\wsock32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\oldnames.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\legacy_stdio_wide_specifiers.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\vcruntime.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\ucrt\x64\ucrt.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\shell32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\ole32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\oleaut32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\uuid.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\odbc32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\odbccp32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\ws2_32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\wsock32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\oldnames.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\legacy_stdio_wide_specifiers.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\vcruntime.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\ws2_32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\wsock32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\oldnames.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\legacy_stdio_wide_specifiers.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\vcruntime.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\ucrt\x64\ucrt.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\ws2_32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\um\x64\wsock32.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\oldnames.lib:
2>LINK : /LTCG specified but no code generation required; remove
/LTCG from the link command line to improve linker performance
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\legacy_stdio_wide_specifiers.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\vcruntime.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows
Kits\10\lib\10.0.17763.0\ucrt\x64\ucrt.lib:
1>
1>Finished searching libraries
1>
1>Searching libraries
1> Searching C:\Program Files\LDC2\lib\phobos2-ldc.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files\LDC2\lib\druntime-ldc.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\legacy_stdio_definitions.lib:
1> Searching C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio\2017\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.16.27023\lib\x64\msvcrt.lib:
