Re: [GD-Windows] Loading new DLLs on old Windows

[Andras B. <bn...@ma...>]

Ah, thanks! Huge amount of info there! You were right, my DLLs are all
having subversion 4.0. So my problem is probably somewhere else..

Thanks again,


Andras


Wednesday, February 11, 2004, 1:21:44 AM, Simon O'Connor wrote:


> Hi Andras,


> The subsystem for a DLL is controlled by the /SUBSYSTEM: linker option in
> your project settings.


> For a DLL project, this will be set to /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS.


> The /SUBSYSTEM: linker option has an **OPTIONAL** subsystem version
> parameter (e.g. /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS,5.01). This optional parameter allows you
> to specify the _minimum_ OS version that the DLL requires to be run.

> You'll find a list of OS version numbers in the documentation for
> OSVERSIONEX. Some examples are:
> Windows 95:    4.0
> Windows 98:    4.10
> Windows ME:    4.90
> Windows 2000:  5.0
> Windows XP:    5.1 (5.01)

> Note that the OS version number comes as two parts, major (4, 5 etc) and
> minor (0, 10, 90, 1 etc). The point isn't a decimal point so 5.1 is the same
> as 5.01 (the "minor" number is 1).


> If you (or your development tools) do *not* specify the optional version
> parameter at the end of the /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS option, a default subsystem
> of 4.00 will be used, regardless of your development tool or OS. [NB: only
> for x86  code targets, for Itanium code targets this is 5.01]

> So a DLL created with Visual Studio .NET 2003 on a WindowsXP machine for
> example will still have a subsystem of 4.00.


> The only time you'll encounter a DLL under Win32 OSes that has a subsystem
> that is different than 4.00 is if that DLL absolutely requires that version
> of Windows.


> You can view the subsystem of a DLL using Dependency Walker (it comes with
> the platform SDK, depends.exe). DUMPBIN should tell you this too.


> To change the subsystem of an existing DLL that you don't have the
> sourcecode to (i.e. when you aren't able to alter the /SUBSYSTEM option),
> you can change it using EDITBIN.


> So in short, all that part of the documentation is saying is "if the DLL
> specifies that it needs a newer version of Windows than the one currently
> installed (if 9x) then the LoadLibrary() call will fail".


> HTH

> Cheers,

> Simon O'Connor
> Programmer @ Acclaim
> & Microsoft DirectX MVP

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: gam...@li...
>> [mailto:gam...@li...] On
>> Behalf Of Andras Balogh
>> Sent: 10 February 2004 16:31
>> To: gam...@li...
>> Subject: [GD-Windows] Loading new DLLs on old Windows
>>
>> MSDN says:
>>
>> "Windows Me/98/95: If you are using LoadLibrary to load a
>> module that contains a resource whose numeric identifier is
>> greater than 0x7FFF, LoadLibrary fails. If you are attempting
>> to load a 16-bit DLL directly from 32-bit code, LoadLibrary
>> fails. If you are attempting to load a DLL whose subsystem
>> version is greater than 4.0, LoadLibrary fails. If your
>> DllMain function tries to call the Unicode version of a
>> function, LoadLibrary fails."
>>
>> Now, I believe that my DLLs' subsystem version is greater
>> than 4.0 (how can I check?). How can I make it work on
>> Win95/98/ME?? Is there a linker option? Or some other workaround?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Andras
>>