Installing shared files (dll & ocx)

Ton_B · Post by **Ton_B** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:33 am

I've got a question regarding the use of shared dll's uses by different software packages.

This is the situation:

We install program_1, wich will install a file named "SSPng2.dll" inside the setuppath eg. C:\\Program File\\Prog_1
The file will then be registered on that location.

Once we have done that, we are going to install program_2, using installaware.
The setup of this program wants to install the same file named SSPng2.dll
but wants to install it inside the windows\\system32 directory.

The question now is, does installaware detect that the same file is already present on the system, but on another location? and will it detect the current versionnumber?
OR
does IA installs the file in the system32 directory and register it?
If so, I can imagine that the first registration will be lost and is being replaced by the IA file.

Bar_BQ · Post by **Bar_BQ** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:27 am

Hi,

I suspect that only the last registered library will be available because of the library's name.

bokkie · Post by **bokkie** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:51 am

Bar_BQ wrote:Hi,

I suspect that only the last registered library will be available because of the library's name.

Correct.

I copied the same COM dll to two different locations and ran regsvr32 on both. The second one I registered is what got written to the registry. I then ran regsvr32 on the first dll and that overwrote the registry's registration of the second. The guids were identical but that was expected as it was the same dll. If the dll had been changed and recompiled after the first was registered then new guids would have been generated and two entries would be written. Providing the files are identical the last one in and registered describes the pathname where it was installed to.