Re: DLL names under windows

From: williamkempf_at_[hidden]
Date: 2001-10-19 16:54:00

--- In boost_at_y..., "Alisdair Meredith" <alisdair.meredith_at_b...> wrote:
> Now that I have a basic build system running, I notice that the 
Regex DLLs generated have a name I expect would be the same if I 
compiled with MSVC, or Cygwin.  Would these DLLs be interchangeable?  
I doubt it.  Given the windows practice of installing (almost) all 
DLLs in the system folder, isn't this asking for trouble if two tools 
supplied by different vendors rely on the same boost library, but use 
different compilers?

With Win2K and all later Windows versions (this include ME and XP) 
Microsoft is discouraging you from installing DLLs in the system 
folder, or even from freely sharing them between applications.  
They've got the concept of "side-by-side" DLLs and a few other tricks 
meant to eliminate "DLL Hell".  I expect that shortly what you're 
concerned about will be a non-issue because of this.  In the meantime 
I'd simply recommend installing Boost DLLs in the application 
directory for your applications, even though this means they may 
waste disk space if you have multiple applications following this 
model.  It's just easier to deal with that way for your end users.

Bill Kempf