Hi,
I am building dlls that can be loaded in different ways: by several applications we are developing but also by activeX objects we have also developed and that can be used into Excel, Matlab, etc. Up to now I was using static linking to avoid the need to install run-time (or load-time) libraries. I am planning to to switch to dynamic linking but I was wondering how to manage this correctly. The documentation says that the system is using "Dynamic-Link Library Search Order" to load dynamlic link libraries, stating that :
A system can contain multiple versions of the same dynamic-link library (DLL). Applications can control the location from which a DLL is loaded by specifying a full path or using another mechanism such as a manifest. If these methods are not used, the system searches for the DLL at load time as described in this topic.
The text mentions the use of manifest mechanism to locate the dlls. I did not find (I probably did not searched efficiently) any information about this. Is it possible to generate a manifest file that contains information about libraries dependencies in such a way that the dlls can be located in any places (the dlls I am building as well as the load-time libraries)?
N.B: the dlls I am building are 32 and 64 bits dlls located into the "Common files" subfolder of the "Program Files" and "Program Files (x86)" folders and I don't want to (or can't) use the PATH environement variable to manage this.
Best regards,
Phil.