PRB: Error 53 "File Not Found" When Calling a DLL Function

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This article was previously published under Q178489

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SYMPTOMS

The following error message displays when you attempt to call a function in a dynamic-link library (DLL) file from Visual Basic:

Error 53 "File Not Found"

The error message occurs at the function call statement.

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This message occurs when Windows is unable to load the specified DLL, particularly if the DLL has not been saved at the specified location. It will also occur if the dependency files required by the DLL file are not installed in the computer.

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RESOLUTION

Install the dependency files required by the DLL file.

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MORE INFORMATION

There are a several available tools that will help you determine the dependency files for a DLL file:

The Dependency Walker on the Platform Software Development Kit (SDK) will display dependencies in a graphical form. In fact, if you use Depends on a machine where this problem occurs, the missing DLL is displayed with a red circle, making it easy to determine what the trouble lies.

You can obtain the Dependency Walker (Depends.exe) from the Platform SDK CD-ROM that comes with the MSDN. It can also be downloaded from the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=A55B6B43-E24F-4EA3-A93E-40C0EC4F68E5&displaylang=en (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=A55B6B43-E24F-4EA3-A93E-40C0EC4F68E5&displaylang=en)
The QuickView utility that ships with Windows NT 4.0 shows the dependency files required by a selected DLL file. The QuickView utility can be installed from the Windows NT Setup tab of the Add/Remove Programs Properties dialog box in the Control Panel.

NOTE: The Windows 95 version of QuickView does not provide this functionality.
DUMPBIN.EXE is a utility that ships with Microsoft Visual C++ that can also tell what are the required dependency files required by a DLL file. Use this command line utility with the /import parameter to determine the dependency files.

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