Making a system DLL unavailable (problem with COMMCTRL)

[Samuel Audet]

Hello,

I have a Windows 3.1 application here that uses the OWL library. I have
problems running it properly, and I have found the following:
http://www.xploiter.com/programming/c/borland/3031.html

Looking at what wine outputs when I use "WINEDEBUG=dll" or loaddll, I
see that my program tries to load commctrl.dll and always succeeds. The
problem is, I want it not to succeed, since AFAIK, 16 bit COMMCTRL
functionality is not implemented in WINE, and the OWL library has a
backup plan where it emulates some of the controls (like described on
the site above) when it can't find COMMCTRL, which is what it does in
Windows 2000 or XP for example.

I have confirmed that the COMMCTRL is at the source of the problem by
using one from a Windows 98 installation. Dialogs that are not showing
using WINE's builtin COMMCTRL are now showing (although they are having
sizing problems... anybody might know why?).

Is there like a "disable" option in the [DllOverrides] section? Or some
other way to disable a system DLL? I can't seem to just be able to
"remove" commctrl.dll since even 32 bits builtin DLL (in this case
comctl32.dll) require the 16 bit counterpart. In this case, when
comdlg32 tries to load, it loads comctl32 and fails because it can't
load commctrl. I don't think it's a good idea to make 32 bits DLL be
dependent of their 16 bit counterpart.

Thank for any input!

[Eric Pouech]

Post by Samuel Audet
Hello,
I have a Windows 3.1 application here that uses the OWL library. I have
http://www.xploiter.com/programming/c/borland/3031.html
Looking at what wine outputs when I use "WINEDEBUG=dll" or loaddll, I
see that my program tries to load commctrl.dll and always succeeds. The
problem is, I want it not to succeed, since AFAIK, 16 bit COMMCTRL
functionality is not implemented in WINE, and the OWL library has a
backup plan where it emulates some of the controls (like described on
the site above) when it can't find COMMCTRL, which is what it does in
Windows 2000 or XP for example.
I have confirmed that the COMMCTRL is at the source of the problem by
using one from a Windows 98 installation. Dialogs that are not showing
using WINE's builtin COMMCTRL are now showing (although they are having
sizing problems... anybody might know why?).
Is there like a "disable" option in the [DllOverrides] section? Or some
other way to disable a system DLL? I can't seem to just be able to
"remove" commctrl.dll since even 32 bits builtin DLL (in this case
comctl32.dll) require the 16 bit counterpart. In this case, when
comdlg32 tries to load, it loads comctl32 and fails because it can't
load commctrl. I don't think it's a good idea to make 32 bits DLL be
dependent of their 16 bit counterpart.

one of the things you could try (but that's risky) is to compile wine
twice. First time with standard option, second time with disabling
compilation of 16 bit part. Then use the commctrl DLL from the second
compilation in the first compilation. But you need to do everything by hand.
The best solution anyhow is to understand why Wine's commctrl in 16 bit
fails and fix it.

A+

[Samuel Audet]

Hello,

Post by Eric Pouech
one of the things you could try (but that's risky) is to compile wine
twice. First time with standard option, second time with disabling
compilation of 16 bit part. Then use the commctrl DLL from the second
compilation in the first compilation. But you need to do everything by hand.
The best solution anyhow is to understand why Wine's commctrl in 16 bit
fails and fix it.

Thanks for the tip! I have tried something else since then. I modified
OWL50.DLL to look for COMMCTRL.DLL in say CRAPPY00.DLL, and that made
the DLL unavailable all right, but it still didn't work correctly. I
get the same "no dialog" dialog window that is either huge, or tiny,
depending on other options, and with 100% CPU usage. My guess is,
OWL50.DLL correctly detects that Wine's COMMCTRL.DLL is a stub and
starts using its emulated controls, but fails to display them...

Anybody has some debugging experience with Wine to give me hint as to
where I should start looking why OWL50.DLL can't display its emulated
controls on Wine? Thank you

later!

[Mike Hearn]

Post by Samuel Audet
Is there like a "disable" option in the [DllOverrides] section?

Try "commctrl"="native"

thanks -mike

[Samuel Audet]

Hi!

Post by Mike Hearn
Try "commctrl"="native"

Hum... I must have been tired the other day, because Wine actually never
provides a built-in commctrl.dll, which is OK.

Ok, so the only big problem seems to be that OWL50.DLL can't display its
emulated controls. Yes, the native commctrl.dll from Windows 98 kind of
works. The dialog window size is incorrect. Any hint as to where I
should start looking in the code or the debugger?

Thank you! bye

[Mike Hearn]

Post by Samuel Audet
Ok, so the only big problem seems to be that OWL50.DLL can't display its
emulated controls. Yes, the native commctrl.dll from Windows 98 kind of
works. The dialog window size is incorrect. Any hint as to where I
should start looking in the code or the debugger?

That sort of problem is tricky, try a +dialog,+win trace to get you
started.

thanks -mike