That is exactly how I interpret it. App.path is the first folder searched.
If someone deleted your DLL from the app.path then that is easy enough to check and you can abort your app. If it is there, you can crc and abort if crc is not the same. I guess those would be valid options.

When I suggested maybe renaming. What I meant is that if you wanted to prevent the one in your app.path from running, renaming it would prevent it from being the 1st found, then the other paths would be searched and, if found in those other paths, that one would be used instead.

To prevent potential problems, I'd suggest that the DLL always be installed in the exe's folder. But what if someone moved the exe to another folder?