unregistering dll's

i was reading a post in reference to proper dll management. If i understood the post properly... everytime a dll needs to be re-registered, it should be unregistered first, then registered. If the unregister process is skipped, the registry will eventually become bloated. Is this the case?

SS - Mtl

This is only true if the CLSID changes which only happens when you change the interface of the object and then re-compile the ActiveX DLL.

To re-cap:

Starting with an ActiveX DLL version 1.0, Register the DLL.

Now the developer wishes to change the public interface on the object, and call it version 1.1. In this case do NOT simply register the new DLL, cause you will be left with 2 registry entries, 1 for v1.0 and 1 for v1.1.

Instead, Un-register v1.0, delete v1.0, then register v1.1.

Thats all I meant. Make more sense?

But if the developer is smart enough to have turned on binary comaptibility, then it would always get the same classid and not cause reg bloat.

Quote:

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Originally posted by TalonSoftware
But if the developer is smart enough to have turned on binary comaptibility, then it would always get the same classid and not cause reg bloat.

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Step 1, read this:

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...hreadid=306375

No, this is not true always and forevermore. Even if you have Binary Compatibility turned on, you can still "break compatibility" by changing the interface of that object, which forces you to change your CLSID.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Dave Sell
Step 1, read this:

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...hreadid=306375

No, this is not true always and forevermore. Even if you have Binary Compatibility turned on, you can still "break compatibility" by changing the interface of that object, which forces you to change your CLSID.

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I sit corrected. I probably should have stated, if binary compatibility is turned on and maintained then there shouldn't be a problem. But, yes it's true, there are times when it simply cannot be helped. We try to avoid doing that at all costs. If we need to break it, we actualy end up extending it and adding a 2 (or 3 or what ever iteration it is) to the end of the function/method/proc name. This ensures that older code calling will still work with the old interface, but newer code uses the new interface.

basically, until the CLSID changes, i can register the dll as many times as i want without having to unregister the dll first?

Correct. Those actions will not create multiple registry entries.

Dont want to intrude, but since we are talking about dlls, I had
a related question. I wanted to know when you are registering a
dll using regsrv32 dllname.dll, what does the error
message "Library Loaded, but entry point not found" mean?

AFAIK, you get that from trying to register a DLL that is not an activeX DLL:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;249873

Thanks Dave. Actually it is a ActiveX dll from CR 8.5 I am getting
a few errors when I am registering a few of the CR dlls on
another system. The error:

Quote:

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Dllname was loaded, but the DllRegisterServer or DllUnregisterServer
entry point was not found.

Dllname may not be exported, or a corrupted version of Dllname
may be in memory. Consider using Pview to detect the file and
remove it.

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Also another error I get on another dll is:

Quote:

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LoadLibrary("Dllname") failed. GetlastError returns 0x00000485

From Winerror.h, 0x00000485 = 1157 (ERROR_DLL_NOT_FOUND),
which means "One of the library files needed to run this
application cannot be found." For example, typing regsvr32
missing.dll returns this error message if the Missing.dll file is not
found

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But the file is there and spelled correctly.

Anyways thanks for the link. I will send it to my work email so I
will have it when I go back to work. (I am out "sick" today).

Thanks again.