Windows requires that applications using the Event Log be bound to all of the necessary components. This means that the PROMSGS.DLL and the CATEGORY.DLL must be bound to an OpenEdge database. The database engine stores this information in the registry. The engine makes the registry entries and performs any binding operations that are necessary when you initially access a database. When the engine binds the .dll files to the database, it writes the fully qualified pathname to the registry. If you delete the database, you must manually remove the associated data from the registry. Or, if you move the location of the .dlls after you access the database, you must manually edit the registry data. The OpenEdge components can be found in the following location in the registry:

See the Microsoft Windows documentation for more information about editing registry files.

When the database engine tries to find the .dlls before this information is included in the registry, it searches the current directory. If the .dll is not in the current directory, the engine searches the directory where the executable is located. If the .dll is not in the same directory as the OpenEdge executable, the engine searches the user's path. If the .dll is not in the user's path, the engine generates a message stating that the .dll cannot be found, and it writes a message to the OpenEdge event log file.