I want to be a know-all and understand XPs registry - can you help me irritate my friends?
CCleaner reports dozens of Missing Shared DLL's.
What does that mean?
How does it find these? It can't surely interrogate my applications for references to DLLs
Perhaps the Registry includes lists of DLLs which each application might need?
The common explanation "often left behind after software is uninstalled" is not very helpful when referring to something that's missing.
CCleaner offers to "fix these issues" - but that can't surely mean it finds and replaces the DLL references, or indeed the DLLs themselves.
Perhaps it means that it removes references within the Registry flagging a DLL that should be there is missing. But, if a DLL is reportedly missing - doesn't that imply that it SHOULD be present? If the reference to its absence is removed, what hope is there that an application requiring that DLL will ever find it.
Or does it mean that the Registry itself is mistaken in flagging that a DLL is missing?
Lastly: given that all these questions are disturbing my sleep - are there potentially nasty consequences of instructiing CCleaner to "fix" these issues?
I'd be grateful if you have the time to answer any of this and satisfy my curiosity. I used to be a DOS expert, and as with my old motor cars, could expect to repair most things with a crowbar and hammer. Bill Gates has a lot to answer for.
Philip