Important:
This is retired content. This content is outdated and is no longer being maintained. It is provided as a courtesy for individuals who are still using these technologies. This content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.
A version of this page is also available for
4/8/2010

This function decrements the reference count of the loaded DLL module.

When the reference count reaches zero, the module is unmapped from the address space of the calling process and the handle is no longer valid.

Syntax 

BOOL FreeLibrary(
  HMODULE 
hLibModule
);

Parameters

hLibModule

[in] Handle to the loaded library module.

The LoadLibrary, LoadLibraryEx, or GetModuleHandlefunction returns this handle.

Return Value

Nonzero indicates success. Zero indicates failure. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

Each process maintains a reference count for each loaded library module. This reference count is incremented each time LoadLibraryis called and is decremented each time FreeLibraryis called.

A DLL module loaded at process initialization due to load-time dynamic linking has a reference count of one. This count is incremented if the same module is loaded by a call to LoadLibrary.

Before unmapping a library module, the system enables the DLL to detach from the process by calling the DLL's DllMainfunction, if it has one, with the DLL_PROCESS_DETACH value. Doing so gives the DLL an opportunity to clean up resources allocated on behalf of the current process.

After the entry-point function returns, the library module is removed from the address space of the process.

It is not safe to call FreeLibraryfrom DllMain. For more information, see the Remarks section in DllMain.

Calling FreeLibrarydoes not affect other processes using the same library module.

Requirements

Header winbase.h
Library coredll.lib
Windows Embedded CE Windows CE 1.0 and later
Windows Mobile Windows Mobile Version 5.0 and later

See Also