CODEWITHSUNDEEP
.netc++dllcom
imak
imak

Reputation: 6699

different types of DLLs on windows platform

There are several type of dlls found on windows platform

  1. Old style native dll
  2. COM dll
  3. .NET dll

Are there any more dll types that I am missing in list above? Also what is the difference between each of these?

TIA

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2700

Answers (1)

Cheers and hth. - Alf
Cheers and hth. - Alf

Reputation: 145429

If you disregard what a DLL is used for, then there's only one type of 32-bit DLL.

It has PE (Portable Executable) format, and it exports functions and data, plus resources.

If you distinguish between different kinds of content, then there are an unbounded number of different "types" of DLLs. For example, a DLL might contain just resources for a program. Or it might contain bytecode for some interpreter (a .NET DLL is an example of that). Or whatever. E.g., if you're most keen on those with direct support in Windows, a control panel applet is a DLL, a COM type library is a DLL, and a shell namespace extension is usually a DLL, which leads you into distinguishing between different kinds of COM DLLs as "types" of DLLs. As they used to say, it's only limited by your imagination, and by your notion of "type" -- whatever that notion is.

Cheers & hth.,

Upvotes: 6

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