Microsoft promises end to ‘DLL hell’:

“Windows Server 2003 will bring an end to one of the biggest headaches for Windows users and administrators, according to Microsoft. The problem, which relates to Dynamic Link Libraries–software modules that can be shared by several different applications–has become an increasing headache over the years.

Problems typically occur when an application is installed that uses an updated version of a Dynamic Link Library–or DLL–that is already used by another application. If the original application cannot work with the updated DLL, then the user gets an error message; Windows and Windows applications have no notion of DLL version numbers, and so the problem can be difficult to track down.” ZDNet