Environment: VS 2008 in Windows.
Problem: A static library, say first.lib is not linked to, say second.lib, if first.lib is specified in .vsprops file and none of its functions is referenced in the second.lib.
If, however, first.lib is removed from the .vsprops file and placed instead in the appropriate project options dialog(1), it is linked, even if its functions remain unreferenced.
(1) Project -> Properties -> Configuration Properties -> Linker -> Input.
Our solution uses .vsprops exclusively and to somehow be able to specify first.lib in such a file with additional tweaking of some settings would be considered a more elegant solution.
Using a dummy function to pull in unused functions of first.lib is not an option.