How does NTVDM find it's 16 bit dlls?

[14skywalker]

Hi all, I need to know the answer to the above question because I have the following problem:

The installion of our product fails on NT4 SP6 and after this failure NTVDM cannot find the 16bit dlls anymore. When moving them to the system32 folder it finds them, but this introduces other errors.

I have a workaround for the installation, but once the error has occurred, I cannot undo it anymore and the OS needs to be reïnstalled.

I have tried all this:
- Uninstalling our software -> the error remains
- Uninstalling SP6 -> the error remains
- Comparing the registries of a failed and succesful installation.
- Comparing all versions and dates of dll's (both 16 and 32bit) between a failed and succesful installation.

More background on how the error occurs: Our 32bit installation (installshield 6.3) spawns a 16bit subinstallation (wise) which spawns a driver installation program (32bit). This last installation somehow fails and causes the above erroneous behaviour. When starting the wise installation manualy instead of having it spawned by the installshield installation, everything works fine...

Interesting isn't it? So I hope that with the answer to this question I can solve the problem.

Thanks for reading this.... ;-)

Jeroen

 

[wolluf]

I thought 16 bit dlls go in \winnt\system.

 

[14skywalker]

Thanks for reading this Wolluf. Indeed, the 16bit dlls should go in \winnt\system but NTVDM does not look there anymore after this error has occured! I literally get the error a.o.: 'compobj.dll missing'. When moving/copying it to system32, the error disappears...