An End to DLL Conflicts

Microsoft® Windows® 2000 began to fully address these problems. It provides two features that partially fix DLL conflicts:

·         Windows 2000 enables you to create client applications where the dependent .dll files are located in the same directory as the application's .exe file. Windows 2000 can be configured to check for a component in the directory where the .exe file is located before checking the fully qualified path or searching the normal path. This enables components to be independent of components installed and used by other applications.

·         Windows 2000 locks files that are shipped with the operating system in the System32 directory so they cannot be inadvertently replaced when applications are installed.

The common language runtime uses assemblies to continue this evolution toward a complete solution to DLL conflicts.