Using comctl32.dll legal?

[TiGR]

One of my friends wondered how legal is it to use native comctl32.dll in wine? He owns a license, and he called to MS support, and they told him that Windows is unsplittable piece of software, so comctl32.dll cannot be used separately.

So, what's the deal?

[sol]

By your ridiculous logic, half the applications you use in Windows are not using the DLLs legally since they're using them without the rest of Windows.

[dimesio]

I'd say that MS support person needs to take a look at Microsoft's own website:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

[Reece Dunn]

2008/5/30 sol <[email protected]>:

By your ridiculous logic, half the applications you use in Windows are not using the DLLs legally since they're using them without the rest of Windows.

If an application uses a Windows DLL, that is fine as those DLLs
should be available on the Windows OS that you are running that
application on.

If the application distributes one or more DLLs, it can only do so for
the ones that are redistributable provided that it makes use of them.
This includes msxml 3-6, the Visual C/C++ runtime libraries, GDIPlus
and the DirectX DLLs.

It is possible to get urlmon, mshtml, shlwapi and some others by
installing Internet Explorer, as that distributes and installs those
DLLs.

dimesio has noted that comctl32 (version 5 from IE5, so it does not
include any of the theming updates, nor any of the XP/Vista control
updates) is available as a separate install, and is also available
with Internet Explorer 5 (not sure about IE6 or 7).

- Reece

[Reece Dunn]

2008/5/30 dimesio <[email protected]>:

I'd say that MS support person needs to take a look at Microsoft's own website:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

That version of comctl32 is the one from Internet Explorer 5. The one
on the native Windows OS may have updates that are not available in
the one you specify, such as new or updated controls and
functionality.

The issue was taking the comctl32 binary from a Windows installation,
not using an available installation program. Therefore, I believe the
support person was correct.

- Reece

[3vi1]

One of my friends wondered how legal is it to use native comctl32.dll in wine? He owns a license, and he called to MS support, and they told him that Windows is unsplittable piece of software, so comctl32.dll cannot be used separately.

So, what's the deal?

The deal is that he shouldn't be calling MS for support when he runs into a problem using Wine. He should check the Wine Appdb, submit a bug if it's a new problem, and ask for help here. The fact that he even needs to try to use a native DLL indicates this is something that should be addressed in Wine.

Chances are very slim that there's anything wrong in the native DLL, or that MS would fix it even if there were (unless he could recreate the problem on Windows to prove it's not Wine - and the app he's using is made by MS too).

[Paul Johnson]

The forums are mirrored to a mailing list, and the bridge currently
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context, please quote. http://learn.to/quote

On Fri, 2008-05-30 at 14:42 -0700, sol wrote:

By your ridiculous logic, half the applications you use in Windows are
not using the DLLs legally since they're using them without the rest
of Windows.

Actually, if you're running the programs within Windows, then you would
be using them as properly licensed. There's not a conflict in logic
presented by what was said, as far as I can tell.

--
Paul Johnson
[email protected]
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