load-time missing dll dialog is not shown

[Kevin]

Hi there,
As you know, if a DLL is missing when you run a exe,
Windows shows a dialog saying which DLL is missing.
However, it does not pop up on one of my XP box, though
everything else appears OK on that system.
Any clue or similar symptom?
TIA
-Kevin

 

[John Dingley]

Not wishing to state the obvious, but could it be that that machine has the
dll?

 

[Kevin]

Sorry, I should have made it clearer (was in lunch hurry):
I intentionally remove one of the DLLs a program requires,
and the program silently terminate, instead of poping up
a "missing DLL" dialog. Though I can find a record in
event viewer system message like:
"Application popup: XXXX.exe - Unable To Locate
Component : This application has failed to start because
XXXX.dll was not found".
This happens with any programs on the problematic XP box.
I wonder what's wrong with my XP settings and how to
enable the dialog.
Thanks,
Kevin

 

[John Dingley]

If you "manually" delete a dll that XP requires it will retrieve another
copy from its cache if it has it, so that is not really a good test.