.dll conflict with HCL Notes

[evanson]

We use HCL Notes for our email. When we install it and page gate gui client on the same pc, Notes won't work. After research by HCL Notes support, it appears that it's because page gate is registering comctl32.dll.

Have you ever heard of this?

Any ideas?

We are trying to get HCL to fix it but they wanted us to reach out to you as well.

De-installing page gate doesn't fix Notes either.

[Tech Support]

The PageGate Client does install and register comctl32.dll. It is a VERY commonly used support dll and the vast majority of system already have it install and registered, even before the PageGate Client is installed.

I guess it is possible that HCL Notes wants to use a very specific version of that dll. I think the PG Client may be a bit more forgiving about the exact version.

You could try copying the comctl32.dll from another system that HCL Notes is working properly on and see if that resolves the issue.

Windows tends to protect some of the system dlls so it might revert the comctl32.dll back the previous version after it is replace, so be sure to check after a reboot that the version you want is still there.

Please let us know if that helps.

[evanson]

We have tried that and it's a system dll so it's locked

[Tech Support]

What is the version number of the file currently on a working system and what is it on the PageGate Client system?

[evanson]

Page Gate client 5.82.26100.8037

Working client 5.82.26100.8328

[Tech Support]

Looking deeper into this, I see that the PageGate GUI client does install/update the comctl32.ocx file, but it doesn't update the comctl32.dll file. comctl32.dll is typically protected and only allowed to be updated by windows updates.

Is it possible that the actual issue is being caused by comctl32.ocx?

Similar to what I suggested for the .dll file earlier, you could try copying the comctl32.ocx from a working system onto the problem system. I don't believe comctl32.ocx is protected by Windows, so it should be easier to replace, but you may need to reboot to get all programs to recognize/use the changed version.

[evanson]

It doesn't exist on a machine without page gate. All of those with page gate are having a problem.

[evanson]

Upon further investigation today. I have found the following
Before PageGate gets installed NLNotes.exe will load comctl32.dll from C:\windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft.windows.common-controls_xxx_xxx_none_xxx
Where the xxx's are dependent on the machine.
After PageGate is installed and/or uninstalled. NLNotes.exe will attempt to load the comctl32.dll from C:\windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft.windows.common-controls_xxx_xxx_none_xxx

[Tech Support]

That last bit is good information.
I'm thinking that maybe the path environment variable is what has changed, and it is changing the order in which comctl32.dll is being searched for, and found.

On a both a working system and an non-working system, open a command prompt and type SET <enter>. This will show all the environment variables for the current user. Do the paths look different? If so, can you post them?
Thanks

[Tech Support]

Another thought is that applications typically look for support dlls in their application folder first. You could try copying the correct .dll into the program folder of Notes and it should look there first.

[evanson]

We tried that but got errors about other dlls

[Tech Support]

What is really odd is that the fact that Notes was loading the .dll from C:\windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft... which would signify that it is a 64-bit application and loading the 64-bit dll
After it is loading the .dll from C:\windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft... which would signify that it is a 32-bit application and loading the 32-bit dll
I don't see how Notes would have changed from being a 64-bit application to being a 32-bit application.

Maybe Notes uses some sort of launcher that is 32-bit and that is failing, where a running Notes program has gone beyond the 32-bit launcher and is now running it's main code as a 64-bit application so you see it using the 64-bit dll

We haven't seen anything like this before, so I am struggling with a quick solution.

Were these same systems running an earlier version of PageGate, or is PageGate v11 the first version being installed?

[evanson]

They were running v10.

Most were working but we had a couple new computers that were having this issue with v10.

I think the ones that were working were on v12 of Notes (32-bit) and then upgraded to v14 (64-bit).

I'm not sure when v10 of page gate was installed or if it was an upgrade from an earlier version.

[evanson]

If I downgrade my machine to v12 of Notes, it will work.

[Tech Support]

The only real change between PageGate v10 and PageGate v11 as far as support files goes, is that version 11 requires the Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable files.

vcredist_x86.exe is the official Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable installer
and
vcredist_x64.exe is the official Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable installer

Both are run during the installation. They can be downloaded from here if you want to try reinstalling them:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170

Downloads are under the section:
Latest supported redistributable version