[link|http://et.cairene.net/2006/05/03/behavior-change-in-server-2003-sidebyside/|Behavior change in Server 2003 SideBySide?].

DLLs did make some sense in saving memory and load times on slow, memory-constrained machines. But once MS's APIs got ungodly complex, they tied applications into the OS, etc., etc., then it was guaranteed to break. This [link|http://www.geek-central.gen.nz/peeves/shared_libs_harmful.html|rant] from 1998 makes the point pretty well.

Like many of these things, it seems to be [link|http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=5708811.PN.&OS=PN/5708811&RS=PN/5708811|IBM's fault]...

Cheers,
Scott.