Dll or Dynamic Link Library (also called unhyphenated) is actually the concept used by the Microsoft Corporation to implement the concept of a shared library. DLL is a type of a support file – it complements other programs and files quite effectively . Such files can be used by one or more programs. As an illustration, if the various different parts of a program need to perform one single action common to all, then that may be placed into a .dll extension file. This can ultimately be used by all the parts of the program. A . dll extension file is thus quite handy.
As far as opening and accessing such files is concerned, then the user does not have to open a file with such an extension. Such files can be infected and should always be scanned if you come across such a file. It is never recommended to try to edit or change a file with the .dll extension as this may to a serious damage to the Windows and other programs if it goes wrong.
The file formats which are to be used for DLL are exactly same as those used for the files with the .exe extensions, i.e. the programs. They use Portable Executable (PE) for the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows and use New Executable (NE) for the 16-bit Windows. As far as the data contained by the .dll files is concerned, then they may contain anything from codes to resources to data, in different combinations depending upon the type of the file.
The DLL are very similar to the .exe files, and thus, the export functions of these files can be done in the same way as for the latter. Running a .dll file directly cannot be done as these files need a path or program in the form of the .exe extension to get opened. It can be said that the different operating systems such as Windows and OS/2 are integrated, upgraded and aggregated programs of different files with .dll extensions. A file with the .dll extension might also require the permission of the administrator to get accessed but this is generally not the case with their .exe counterparts.
Open DLL File on Windows OS
- Look for an DLL file you need to open in Windows Explorer and double-click on it
- If the file doesn’t open automatically and you see a “Windows can’t open a file” message then you should search for a program which can open DLL file
- If you have a program which can open DLL file installed on your computer then launch that program and select “File” and then “Open” or similar options from its menu to open the DLL file
- If you don’t have the program installed then you need to try searching for “DLL wiki”, “how to open DLL file” in the search engine.
- Once you find the application, install it on your computer
- After the program is installed double-click on the DLL file to open it
File extensions are used by Windows operating system to specify what kind of information is stored in the file. Every file in Windows OS needs to have file extension and file extensions are used by Windows to determine which application it should use to open the file. Every application installed on Windows OS places information about which extensions it could open into the Windows registry and Windows uses this information to determine which application it should launch when user double-clicks on the file. If application which can open DLL file is not installed, then Windows will show ‘Windows can’t open DLL file’ message and buttons to either select an application on the computer which can open the file or to search the web for the application which can open DLL file.