Incompatibility with Windows NT 4.0 (GDI errors)

[Bosanek]

Hello,

first to say the inevitable - ImgBurn is one of the best optical-drive-related programs by my criteria. I appreciate small, efficient, compact, non-bloated (in graphical sense), well organised, professional-grade (in usability sense) applications. ImgBurn is very good to excellent in all of these criteria.

But I appreciate an application as twice as I would if it also works on Windows NT 4.0 (and preferably on Windows 95). ImgBurn formally supports them.

 

BUT I tried ImgBurn v2.3.2.0 on two computers running Windows NT 4.0 Workstation (SP6a+ applied, one PC has Internet Explorer 5.5 installed, the other has not).

 

ImgBurn installs just fine, but it can not load. The problem is a VERY common incompatibility which plagues many new applications on Windows NT 4.0. They use some newer GDI functions, which are natively present only in Windows 2000/XP (and newer). AFAIK, there is no update for Windows NT 4.0 to bring those GDI functions. A paradox is that many programmers are not even aware that they are implicitly using those functions, so their applications are unnecessarily incompatible with legacy O.S.-es.

 

OK, this is what happened:

 

When I tried to run ImgBurn, I got a fatal error about missing MSIMG32.DLL:

 

 

 

Then I transferred this file from a Windows 2000 PC (it was in \WINNT\System32\) into my \WINNT\System32\, and started the program again. This time I got another error (which I expected to happen from my experience with other programs which had the same incompatibility):

 

 

P.S.: Those two screenshots "belong" to another application which had exactly the same problem (which I reported on its forum), so I just reused them for this occasion.

 

To remedy this issue, a programmer has to clense his code of newer API calls (specific to Windows 2K/XP).

 

If you need help with testing, I can help (I have a VMware virtual machine running Windows NT 4.0).

Edited February 3, 2008 by Bosanek

[dontasciime]

To remedy this issue, a programmer has to clense his code of newer API calls (specific to Windows 2K/XP).

 

 

Or join in with 21st century mob and update your operating system or your computer

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I work very hard to keep ImgBurn working on 95, 98, NT4 etc and test each one on those OS's via VMWare myself.

 

I have no problem loading it on my virtual machines and the specific calls you're talking about are nothing to do with my own code so I can't work around them.

 

Try the attached dll, it's the one I found on my own install of NT4 - no idea how it got there though, maybe from IE6?

 

EDIT: Even when I delete that file (and I've searched the entire hdd for others), it still runs fine.

Msimg32.zip

[Bosanek]

First of all, thank you very much for your commitment to retain compatibility with legacy operating systems. That means a LOT to some people!

 

Secondly, I have some very good news. After downloading your MSIMG32.DLL, I realised that my MSIMG32.DLL was faulty! After trying your version, good things began to happen .

I tried ImgBurn on a "bare" Windows NT 4.0, with NOTHING installed except Service Pack 6a. ImgBurn of course complained about missing MSIMG32.DLL. After providing it in \WINNT\System32\, ImgBurn worked just fine! No lousy Internet Explorer was needed at all (and that is the prime goal).

 

I consider this case to be solved! This is an example why it is good to participate in forums . Now I have to re-test some other programs which previously used to crash because of my faulty DLL .

 

---

 

I highly recommend you to place a notice on some visible place (perhaps a download page) on ImgBurn web site, which would say that Windows NT 4.0 users need to have MSIMG32.DLL in their \Winnt\System32\ folder, and please give them a direct link to download it.

 

- All the best, Bosanek