>So, I had it right the first time but I was running it from the VB environment and it looks like I can't do that. Any ideas why?

Ask the creator to see if he is using it in the VB IDE. Can I download this DLL?


>Plus, you say that it is a "real" library. What's a real library, what's an example of an "unreal" one and in what cases should I register a library?

DLL stands for Dynamic Link Library.

When DLL first appeared, it was all created using C. We where calling them by declaring functions of the library like we do now in VB using the Declare statement.

When COM objects appeared, some of them where also using the DLL extension but since these are COM objects, you need to set a reference (Project->References), declare and instantiate a variable (dim x as new componentname.classname) before using it (x.DoSomething).

COM objects needs to be registered.