My code is a plugin for a specific Application, written in C++ using Visual Studio 8. It uses two DLL from an external provider. Unfortunately, my plugin fails to start because the DLLs are not found (I put them in the same directory as the plugin itself).

When I manually move or copy the DLLs to the host application directory, then the plugin loads fine. This moving was deemed unacceptably cumbersome for the end user, and I am looking for a way for my plugin to load its DLLs transparently. What can I do?

Relevant details:

• the host Application plugins are located in a directory mandated by the host application. That directory is not in the DLL search path and I don't control it.
• The plugin is itself packaged as a subdirectory of the plugin directory, holding the plugin code itself, but also any resource associated with the plugin (eg images, configuration files…). I control what's inside that subdirectory, called a "bundle", but not where it's located.
• the common plugin installation idiom for that App is for the end user to copy the plugin bundle to the plugin directory.

This plugin is a port from the Macintosh version of the plugin. On the Mac there is no issue because each binary contains its own dynamic library search path, which I set as I needed to for my plugin binary. To set that on the Mac simply involves a project setting in the Xcode IDE. This is why I would hope for something similar in Visual Studio, but I could not find anything relevant. Moreover, Visual Studio's help was anything but, and neither was Google.

A possible workaround would be for my code to explicitly tell Windows where to find the DLL, but I don't know how, and in any case, since my code is not even started, it hasn't got the opportunity to do so.

As a Mac developer, I realize that I may be asking for something very elementary. If such is the case, I apologize, but I have run out of hair to pull out.