horrible version conflicts

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Kyuso Cahi - 26 Oct 2004 10:01 GMT

I had to struggle for hours for problems with 3 softwares installing some
dll files.

I eventually installed each software separately by clean installing win98
first each time, and finally figured out what the problem was.

The dlls each of them were installing had different version numbers and each
were overwriting each other's previous installation. So it actually
depended on the order of software install which version of dll ended up
being installed and which software crashed.

Is this behavior still there in other Windows versions? Is there no way to
have separate versions of dll co-existing? Should I spend money for XP?

At least in linux or unix you can have different versions of libraries
co-existing by attaching version number in the file name. This allows tens
of software running at the same time without problems.

Can we do this in Windows? I tend to see some short version number (20,22,
etc.) but not for full version numbers (20.235, 20.454, etc.) which still
tend to create conflicts with dll even if they have the same major version.

This is really annoying and ridiculous, since all I want is 3 puny softwares
running in my machine.

Reply to this Message

Don Phillipson - 26 Oct 2004 16:31 GMT

> I had to struggle for hours for problems with 3 softwares installing some
> dll files.
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
> This is really annoying and ridiculous, since all I want is 3 puny softwares
> running in my machine.

Your problem is simply bad programming of the
instal module in each of the three apps. Most of
us have seen the window warning us that a new
installation is prepared to overwrite a DLL with an
older version, asking us if we would rather keep
the newer version. When we do, we can be sure
the new app has been configured to be compatible
with the newer DLL.

You simply had very bad luck, needing three apps
all three of which were so badly programmed, with
this obvious flaw.

Signature

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Reply to this Message

PattyL - 26 Oct 2004 19:28 GMT

Don is correct that this is poor programming of the applications that you
were installing with each assuming that their version would be the newest on
your system. Generally, when this happens, you are not asked if you want to
keep your current version. With these three applications, you can probably
resolve this problem by installing the most recent one first or if you have
figured out which dlls are being overwritten, then make copies of them into
another folder before installing the next program, determine the most recent
version of the dll(s) and see if those work for all three programs.

Generally with dlls, they are backward compatible and the newest version
will have the libraries required by the other programs. In some cases,
programmers modify the dlls so that they have proprietary information and
are not compatible.

You might also bring this problem to the attention of the program's
manufacturer's in hopes that they will see the error of their ways for
future versions.

PattyL

>I had to struggle for hours for problems with 3 softwares installing some
> dll files.
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
> softwares
> running in my machine.

Reply to this Message

Kyuso Cahi - 28 Oct 2004 07:15 GMT

> Don is correct that this is poor programming of the applications that you
> were installing with each assuming that their version would be the newest
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
>
> PattyL

Thank you. After trying, I eventually made two of them work, but the third
one could never co-exist with the other two. I am not very pleased, but
that's how far I got.

The manufacturer requested that I buy a new version. I don't want to spend
more money to fix something that was broken in the first place. Oh well, I
won't deal with that manufacturer ever again.

Reply to this Message