Microsoft Windows library files

List of main shared-libraries of Microsoft Windows The Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Windows SDK support a collection of shared libraries that software can use to access the Windows API. This article provides an overview of the core libraries included with modern Windows installation, upon which most Windows applications are built. Library sources The Windows operating system contains compiled versions of these libraries known as dynamically-linked libraries (.dll), which are executable libraries that can be used by multiple programs while only one copy of the library is loaded into memory. These are canonically referred to as system libraries and all programs installed on the system can utilize them. The Windows SDK additionally distributes compiled versions of these libraries known as statically-linked libraries (.lib), which are non-executable libraries that, in whole or in part, can be embedded into a program when it is compiled.[disputed – discuss] The most common Windows compilers being Microsoft Visual Studio and MinGW. Internal components NTDLL.DLL NTDLL.DLL exports the Windows Native API. The Native API is the interface used by user-mode components of