This differs from Win16, where once a DLL was loaded, no other DLL with the same name could be loaded. Win16 only retained the 8 character name of the DLL to identify whether it was loaded or not. Win32 uses the entire path and file name to identify DLLs, so two DLLs with the same name, but in different folders, can be loaded by a single process. Also, Win32 does not skip the search if other applications have loaded the DLL. It always searches, using these rules.