I tried building Ruby from source on Windows using MSVC++ today.  I
notice that a dll gets built: msvcrt-ruby18.dll

I've got a couple of questions about this:
1) how does this dll differ from the standard msvcrt.dll that comes
with Windows?
2) can't I just statically link so there is no dependence on this dll?

I'm planning to embed Ruby into a C program.  I want to build one
standalone executable; I'd rather not have to ship a dll file as well.

Phil