This is a quick fix for an issue which a lot of people using my instruments, and thesis students using my ADMIs development library are encountering. The issue consists in sudden application crashes at startup.

The fix

Download the following file, extract and place the two .dll files in “C:\Windows\SysWOW64”. This should be sufficient.

msvc110 old libraries.zip

The reason

For some time now Tobii (manufacturer of eye trackers compatible with my instruments) has decided to cut support for the development libraries I use to program my software musical instruments (including NeeqDMIs).

A new development library is available, but in order to develop and distribute compatible software using that library, a commercial license is required: this effectively prevents the development of free and open-source software. Although this decision is justified by Tobii with a need to control who holds the license, in order to protect the privacy of users of eye trackers (it is possible to derive biometric data from eyes!), and it is a decision that inevitably leaves me very unhappy.

I am therefore forced to use an old development library of theirs, which has dependencies on old versions of Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) libraries. Very often such libraries are already present in many Windows installations, because they are required by many applications. Unfortunately, Microsoft's official installer of the latest version of MSVC does not include these two DLLs, which are therefore, in many cases, to be entered manually.

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