Re: GnuTLS for W32

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,
>     address@hidden
> Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:21:07 +0900
> 
> Eli Zaretskii writes:
> 
>  > For this reason, I think we should give Emacs users an option to put
>  > the downloaded DLL in some directory that is not Emacs-specific, so
>  > that other programs could use it.
> 
> Well, as you know I'm not a Windows person, but my understanding is
> that one reason that DLL hell is called "DLL hell"

An aside: the "DLL hell"s flames are much lower now than they used to
be, see

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-by-side_assembly

FWIW, I didn't have a single problem for years on my XP boxes.  YMMV,
of course.

> is that programs install their own versions of DLLs *in the system
> directories* that for one reason or another are inappropriate for
> other programs.  So in fact you're asking a lot of knowledge on the
> user's part to get this right.

Only as an option, which I expect to be used by someone who really
knows what they are doing.  By default, we should install into the
directory of emacs.exe.

(Btw, it doesn't have to be a system directory to be useful to other
programs.  A DLL that is not a standard component on Windows can be
put in some directory on PATH that was created and is maintained by
the user.  That's what I do, FWIW.)

> I think that the thing to do is for Emacs to install private versions
> of DLLs when it installs any at all

By default, certainly.