Added December 2012

A-Shell loads a number of DLLs dynamically as needed to implement certain control types (XTEXT and XTREE being two examples). The search path for such DLLs starts in the directory where ashw32.exe was loaded from (typically c:\vm\miame\bin), and this is where we keep all of the DLLs released with A-Shell (so as to avoid conflicts with other applications which may be using different versions of the same DLLs). When A-Shell encounters an error loading one of its DLLs, it will make a second try to load it from an alternate location:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\A-Shell\        (64 bit systems)

or

C:\Program Files\Common Files\A-Shell\              (32 bit systems)

This directory does not normally exist, so the second try will not have any effect unless you set it up. The only reason why you would do such a thing is if you are experiencing the rare error condition where it reports that the DLL cannot be loaded because it is in use. Most likely the cause would be some antivirus software, or backup software or something else on the system that is gaining exclusive use to the library long enough to block other users. But if the cause cannot be resolved directly, you can work around it by creating the alternate directory above and putting a second copy of the affected DLLs into it.

History

2012 December, A-Shell 6.1.1326:  Added alternate paths to search sequence