Rudedog,
Regarding DLLs. Have you seen the following?
techweb.com
Whistler, which now refers to both consumer and business Windows upgrades under development, was previously the code name for an upcoming technology in Windows 2000 designed to put "DLL Hell," or the painstakingly slow start-up, to bed forever, Microsoft sources said.
"The Whistler technology will eliminate installation procedures as we know them by fooling every application into thinking that it is installing on a completely clean Windows installation," said one source familiar with the technology. "The operating system will then manage an application registry where each application uses only the DLLs that it shipped with. This does mean multiple copies of DLLs maintained for each application, but since hard disks are so big now, the waste is less of a concern than it was in the past. The goal is install once, run forever, since applications won't have to contend with DLLs changing underfoot."
Windows 2000 currently protects against "DLL hell" with private DLLs and Windows File Protection. Windows File Protection protects system DLLs from being updated or deleted by unauthorized agents. Applications cannot replace system DLLs; only operating system update packages such as service packs can. The feature has proven annoying to some Windows 2000 users who have tried to load uncertified drivers.
In the future version of Windows, Microsoft will "isolate Windows applications from each other, providing the user with a 'run once, run forever' experience," according to Microsoft's website.
-JB |
