I was talking to WiRe one day about a file of mine not working (Starcraft X-Tra Editor 2.6[? not sure on ver]) and asked him if he could upload his Riched20.dll file. I was going to replace it with the one in C:\Windows\system32 but I'm kind of wary, cause riched20.dll came installed when I had Windows installed on my PC, so I don't want to really mess it up. Also there's about a hundred and fifty KB difference in the two files, if that makes any difference.
Edit:
The full question is: Is it safe to change a file that came with WinXP with another file that's smaller but the same thing?
If it came from another XP machine I would guess so, back up the original just incase. Like rename it Riched20.dll.back
Windows goes through a certain set of directories looking for the .dll. The first place it checks is the current folder, and the last place is system32 (I can't remember the rest of them). Therefore, my advice is to put the new one in the same directory as the program.
If that doesn't work, then yeah, it's probably safe if his is a newer version. Most developers (even Microsoft, normally) make .dll and such backwards compatible.
Oddly enough
I moved the file OUT of the folder that the EXE was in
and it worked like a charm!
Anyone have any theory(ies) as to why?
Perhaps the file you moved out was broken, and you forced it to use the system default instead of the broken file?