AfxLoadLibrary VS LoadLibrary

For AfxLoadLibrary, and serving as the dll search rule: When no path is specified, the function searches for the file in the following sequence:

• The directory from which the application loaded.

• The current directory.

• Windows 95/98: The Windows system directory. Windows NT: The 32-bit Windows system directory. The name of this directory is SYSTEM32.

• Windows NT only: The 16-bit Windows system directory. There is no Win32 function that obtains the path of this directory, but it is searched. The name of this directory is SYSTEM.

• The Windows directory.

• The directories that are listed in the PATH environment variable.

Each process maintains a reference count for each loaded library module. This reference count is incremented each time AfxLoadLibrary is called and is decremented each time AfxFreeLibrary is called. When the reference count reaches zero, the module is unmapped from the address space of the calling process and the handle is no longer valid.

Be sure to use AfxLoadLibrary and AfxFreeLibrary (instead of the Win32 functions LoadLibrary and FreeLibrary) if your application uses multiple threads and if it dynamically loads an extension DLL. Using AfxLoadLibrary and AfxFreeLibrary insures that the startup and shutdown code that executes when the extension DLL is loaded and unloaded does not corrupt the global MFC state.