# Registering DLLs **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 15, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/registering-dlls/308407 "2005-06-15T17:32:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/registering-dlls/308407/1 "2005-06-15T17:32:37Z")
Quick question, though I can get more specific if I need. Is there some setting in Windows XP that disallows the registering of DLL files? If so, where do I find it and change it? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/registering-dlls/308407/2 "2005-06-15T18:32:40Z")
I’ll take more specifics. What dll file are you trying to register? How are you doing it? What’s the error message you’re getting? ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/registering-dlls/308407/3 "2005-06-15T18:35:11Z")
Do you want to disallow or reallow registering, or both?? I’m not aware of a single switch, but to complete a registration the current windows account needs to have Write permissions in the HKEY\_CLASSES\_ROOT registry tree. By default, regular users do not have these permissions, admins do. (Not sure about power users etcetera.) ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/registering-dlls/308407/4 "2005-06-15T18:41:01Z")
> [@Daizy](#): > > I’ll take more specifics. > What dll file are you trying to register? > How are you doing it? > What’s the error message you’re getting? DLL is a proprietaty DLL, specific to a program. It has worked in many other environments and so evidence suggests that the problem is system specific and I suspect permissions relataed. The installer registers it in all other cases. The specific error that comes up when trying to use regsvr32 to register it is “\*.dll was not loaded, but the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found. The file can not be registered.” ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/registering-dlls/308407/5 "2005-06-15T18:43:23Z")
What privileges does the current login have? ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/registering-dlls/308407/6 "2005-06-15T18:50:45Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > DLL is a proprietaty DLL, specific to a program. It has worked in many other environments and so evidence suggests that the problem is system specific and I suspect permissions relataed. The installer registers it in all other cases. > > The specific error that comes up when trying to use regsvr32 to register it is “\*.dll was not loaded, but the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found. The file can not be registered.” Only COM DLL’s can be registered. All .ocx files are actually special-purpose COM DLL’s. But not all (in fact only a minority) of .DLL’s are COM DLL’s. Since the error message indicates that “the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found.” this means that the DLL in question is almost certainly not a COM DLL and cannot (and does not need to be) registered. ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2005, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/registering-dlls/308407/7 "2005-06-15T19:31:41Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > …Since the error message indicates that “the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found.” this means that the DLL in question is almost certainly not a COM DLL and cannot (and does not need to be) registered. I am pretty sure that the error message is a red herring of sorts. As you may or may not have surmised, I am asking this question in relation to my job (tech support) and so I factually know that this particular DLL requires registration (not that I wrote it, but the guy that did tells me tha this is so). In any event, I am looking into what group the user logging into is a part of and so forth. Thanks for suggestions, folks.