I’m a SuperFan of the FreeCommander freeware file manager.
I have quite the collection of Windows file manager applications and each one has its own coolness factor.
But when it come down to just the daily file management operations, I reach for this one every single day.
The tabs, features, tools, and customizations just make it hands-down awesome.
Developer Marek Jasinski has been hard at work for some time on the next version, FreeCommander XE.
He offers frequently updated Preview Release versions in both installers and “Portable” versions.
I’ve actually been running a non-public “donor” build of FreeCommander XE for quite a while and it has been very stable and fast on my Windows 7 (x64) system.
So when I finally got around to putting a recent copy on an XP system, I was startled to get the following error dialog window when launched.
"The Procedure Entry point ConvertToGlobalHandle could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll".
Super-strange. Interestingly, I could close the error dialog and the application otherwise seemed to function fine. It just appeared at launch.
I did some Google work and eventually found the cause via a similar error reported in the ImgBurn (a optical-media burning/ripping software I also recommend and use):
Imgburn error, entry point not found - ImgBurn Support - ImgBurn Support Forum
The error comes from ImgBurn, but it's not really ImgBurn's fault.
I ran into a similar symptom running ImgBurn under WinXP 32-bit. In my case, the missing dynalink error dialog box on ImgBurn startup was caused by a copy of the Win9x-specific SvrAPI.dll in the c:\Windows\system32\ directory.
SvrAPI.dll dynalinks to the Win9x Kernel32.dll's ConvertToGlobalHandle() API. But the Kernel32.dll of NT-based Windows OSes, like WinXP and Win7, doesn't export ConvertToGlobalHandle(). So if you try to load the Win9x SvrAPI.dll on an NT-based Windows OS, you get a missing dynalink error dialog box. Removing c:\Windows\system32\SvrAPI.dll, which is not used under NT-based Windows OSes, fixes the problem.
Under Win9x, SvrAPI.dll exports the subset of the Net...() APIs available on that platform. Under NT-based Windows OSes, NetAPI32.dll exports a much fuller set of the Net...() APIs. ImgBurn, correctly, attempts to explicitly load some OS-specific DLLs via LoadLibrary(), like SvrAPI.dll and NetAPI32.dll.
This issue is not really a bug in ImgBurn since SvrAPI.dll should typically not be installed on an NT-based Windows system. However, ImgBurn could work around this issue by attempting to load NetAPI32.dll first and only attempting to load SvrAPI.dll after NetAPI32.dll fails to load. It looks like the explicit loading of SvrAPI.dll was added in ImgBurn 2.5.6.0. ImgBurn 2.5.5.0 does not attempt to explicitly load SvrAPI.dll, and so does not generate the missing dynalink error dialog box.
I went digging on my Windows XP system system32 folder and -- sure enough -- found the SvrAPI.dll file there. I renamed mine “SvrAPI.dll.old” instead of deleting it.
Re-launched FreeCommander XE and no more error. Mkay.
That has been about three weeks ago and I can’t find any harm has been done with “disabling” the file like I did. No telling what application I had previously installed that put it there. YMMV.
I was going to post a followup bug note in the FreeCommander Forums about the issue, but found someone else had already ran into the same issue (note to self, check in the program forums first) and reported the behavior and presence of the SvrAPI.dll file; also linking back to the ImgBurn forum link I found.
FreeCommander Forum • View topic - Entry point ConvertToGlobalHandle not located
Hopefully this or the forum link will help others who encounter this weirdness.
FreeCommander and FreeCommander XE (still in beta).
Highly Valca recommended!
--Claus V.
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