How in the Tech

Relieving DLL hell with DLL Archive

By Adam Myers ⋅ December 8, 2009 ⋅ Tags: System Administration, Windows

Have you ever wondered why a fresh installation of Windows only consumes 10 GB yet in a matter of months, the installation size blossoms two-fold? Look no further than the multitude of DLL files that come along for the ride when you are installing applications. Loosely, DLL stands for dynamically linked libraries and are a necessary evil in the Windows world. In a harmonized world, many applications would pull functionality from common libraries, thus keeping things simple and small. In reality, often every piece of software installs it’s own files, or newer versions of existing files. When software is uninstalled, ideally files that are no longer necessary are removed with it – this is the prompt you may receive about removing shared libraries when you go to run the applications uninstaller. Unfortunately, not all uninstallers are created equally and many will leave these remnants behind.

Cleaning up this mess afterward is near impossible but that’s what makes DLL Archive so useful. DLL Archive is a free Windows utility that scans your computer, returning DLL files that are no longer referenced – which typically means they aren’t necessary to keep around. From the returned list of files you have the option to archive any and all files. If, after using your computer as you normally would for a few days, everything behaves you may then delete the archive and ultimately trim your Windows installation size.

Will DLL Archive make your PC run faster? Not likely, but there is something to be said for the peace of mind afforded in trying to keep your system clean. DLL Archive scratches that itch and is available for all iterations of Windows, included Microsoft’s latest – Windows 7.