Re: [Mingw-users] dll loading, folder

[Bill D. <bdu...@va...>]

> Hello
> I am working on windows xp. Within a folder I have an application=20
> compiled with mingw and several dll's which the application is =
depending=20
> upon. However, there are also dll's in this same folder which the=20
> application is not depending upon. My Problem is, that the application =

> compiled with mingw does load all the dll's in this folder. Does =
anybody=20
> know how to avoid this, so the application does only load the dll's=20
> which it really depends on?
> Any help is very much appreciated!
> thanks, patrik


There is an application that comes with Visual Studio called Dependancy
Walker (or depends.exe) that shows all the dependencies your executable =
or
dll has on other dlls.  Maybe there are some free knock-offs of =
Depends.exe
on the net.  If you think you have unnecessary dlls in your app's =
folder,
then start removing the suspects one-by-one into a backup folder.  The
system will tell you if you are missing something when you run your app
again.  Remember DLL stands for dynamically linked library.  This really =
has
nothing to do with loading except that everything that one DLL is
dynamically linked to is also loaded at start-up time.  For =
demand-loading
use COM (does MingW do that?) or LoadLibrary() and GetProcAddress().  =
One
more trick is to build a dummy dll with a dummy function or two that =
breaks
off the chain at a weak point in the DLL tree.  Do this only if you know
those dummy functions aren't used anywhere in your app's threads.

Thanks,
Bill