Installing DLLs & avoiding problems!

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: Kevin (anonymous_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 03/27/04 

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 16:01:09 -0800

A customer reported that after installing my software on Win98, it caused their Internet Explorer to not "open a new window". I looked into the problem, and best I can tell, it was caused by my setup installing "OLEAUT32.DLL". I have corrected the problem on the customer's computer, and changed my setup to "never overwrite" that file.
My question is this: Is there a reference anywhere on the net that explains the maximum version of a DLL that can be installed on different OS's? I have always been a little afraid when installing DLLs, but I have searched the internet for more information and cannot find it. Below is a list of questionable DLLs that my setup program (Setup Factory 6) said to install after scanning my VB6 project (the rest I know are okay):

Asycfilt.dll
comcat.dll
ctl3d32.dll
oleaut32.dll
olepro32.dll
Stdole2.tlb

For now, I have changed my setup to never overwrite ANY of the above files (therefore, it will only install the file if it does NOT already exist). Does anyone know more about the above files? Do I even need to install them, or are they a part of all OS's? In general, will my app still work, even if some of the above DLLs are older than one ones on my computer? All I have is Windows XP... nothing older!

Thanks,
Kevin