The whole reason why this thread started was because of problems with using the native extension: My [hid] object cannot access hid.dll since the file names are the same.
the MSDN docuentation for LoadLibrary says theres support for absolute paths, in which case it wont search the system PATH first. this is misadvertised?
er, right... "A similar limitation exists for modules with the same name but residing in different directories. For example, if LoadLibrary is called on \Windows\Sample.dll, and then LoadLibrary is called on \MyDir\Sample.dll, \Windows\Sample.dll will simply be reloaded."
nice "gotcha"..