Registering Libraries on Windows

[TheDude05]

I was wondering if anyone had any known resources on how/why Windows deals with registering and subsequently loading DLLs. For example, on Linux there a library search path whereas Windows somehow uses the registry to find and load dlls. (Atleast from what I can tell)

I haven't really found any good resources through my google searches but I'm probably not searching for the right thing. If anyone has any resources or can quickly sum up library registering process it'd be much appreciated. Thanks

 

[BillLeeLee]

Windows looks for DLLs in the immediate directory of whatever application wants it, directories in the path, and system directories.

regsvr32 registers a DLL into the system registry, if the DLL exports the COM functions DllRegisterServer and DllUnregisterServer.

Read mikeblas' post in this thread, he gives a pretty good explanation of it: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1314975&highlight=dll