I think we are going to have an interesting week-end.
Have a good warning (hopefully).
More importantly, I no longer care. Until very recently, neither of us were able to do anything about it, so arguing was futile. However, as of recently I have been promoted to a Moderator, and it turns out I can edit the OP description. I have now done so, with the information provided by you & HeroLief (thank you again), and with any luck, this will help reduce the number of problems/questions people have with the software. At the very least, we can simply redirect them to the Edited OP. Neither is/was particularly onerous; literally the work of minutes, as I suspected.
I do not care about the fact you do not care.
Several users have already pointed out the fact you have modified the OP in a way that is misleading, according to them. I will add to their remarks that my internet name is pyf, not Pyf.
The fact that Hero_Lief's post is from 2007 and is now on page one, is a part of the demonstration you failed to understand.
Your OP modification/addendum will not help reduce the number of problems, because people will not care to read it, just like they have not read any of the posts already providing the answer to the missing dll issue, nor did an internet search to find out what the D3DX9_35.dll error message was related to.
People have to read the previous posts of any thread before posting in it. People have to use search engines to find information. People have to be proactive with their computers; because they are the ones in charge of it; because they are the admins.
Yeah, a comment on page 23, linking an equally-difficult-to-find Visitor Message on your profile. I'm not sure what point you were trying to make here.
My post (which is not a comment btw) is on the current page. As for the Profile post and comment I had written as a follow up, they are not difficult to find (because I have linked to my Profile discussion with HeroEditor from this very thread), and this Profile discussion is not on my Profile btw; it is on his Profile, not mine. And being now a Moderator (as you have pointed out), I am strongly encouraging you to get your facts straight.
The fact you are not sure what point I am trying to make with this specific example, is another point that makes me worry about your recent promotion. In order to not leave you in the dark, simply realize that HeroEditor did not manage to see the info in the OP about the runtime he should have installed on his (brand new?) computer, for his software (Renderedge widescreen) to work. Nobody on THW cared to help him with his issue. Like you for example. Therefore, after having given him a clue because nobody else on THW did, I have written extra additional advice on his Profile, so he does not have to deal with (almost) any other missing Microsoft dependencies and his software always runs (except if he tries to run something written in F#, which is beyond the scope of what a standard computer user generally uses). These recommendations are the basics that everybody should already have installed himself/herself on any brand new OS install. I did not invent it. This information has been available on web sites since years and years. Again, people must be proactive with their computers. They must look for information. It is the basics of using the internet, to look for stuff.
(Of course, "stupid/lazy" is struck through because I believe that's a very cynical & unfair way of looking at/portraying other people, and does nobody any good.)
I have been surfing the internet since the mid-late 1990s. There has clearly been a decline in the mid-2000s, and I have clearly felt a decline in the internet when the web really started to get mainstream. And the situation has been keeping eroding. In fact, most technicians from the old guard have left the help tech forums, because of the ever increasing number of computer users who do not seek for an answer to their issues, nor do the bare minimum to understand things by themselves; all they want is to find a forum to post their questions (and not read the answers already given there), and then they wait for an answer. Sometimes they do not even care for any follow up, meaning they have wasted the time spent by the competent people who have done some research work for them in order to help them.
Again, visit any other help/tech forum about anything, and educate yourself on the current state of mind people have. This is the way things are.
Funny thing about that; you wouldn't be likely to find such, because if people read the instructions, follow them, and successfully Do the Thing, they won't make a thread asking about it. So in a classic example of selection bias, help threads/forums like this make it seem like there's a lot more stupid/lazy computer-unsavvy folks than there really are.
The answers to their questions are already there. They simply do not want to find them/read them. They want a personalized answer to their own very specific post. This is the reason why in the same tech support thread, the same question can come back again and again, sometimes even right after an answer has been given. This very thread is an example of that. I find your failure to notice / acknowledge it to be concerning.
Before posting, one should have the courtesy to read the thread in full, or use a search engine to narrow the number of posts displayed by using keywords / boolean expressions, so one can quickly find out if the same question has already been posted and answered to. Else, why would threads exist in the first place? Why don't we delete every post each week, mmh?
I'm sure one can find any number of examples of computer-unsavvy folks looking for help. After all, that's exactly what forum's like these are all about. It doesn't necessarily prove that "[no one] properly installs the right software/cares/wants to learn or read about how". Just like me finding one positive example wouldn't prove my point.
I can give you many other examples, including but not limited to how people do not read the version requirements for a WC3 map / campaign, so it runs on their computer/game version. Even if that information is written in bold and big and red letters in the OP. It seems to me you should read our threads more often, and more thoroughly. As a Moderator, it is part of your job.
I see it as a problem that you are playing Devil's advocate here, and also that you are condoning bad computer practices by acknowledging the download of seperate components of a Runtime, as a proper way to manage software in a computer.
Speaking specifically about The DirectX9.0c Runtime (because this one is the subject at hand here), it also installs the following files as well, so that any program that needs these files can find and use them:
List of file failures that the DirectX End-User Runtime package fixes
If you experience issues in which an application fails because any of the following files are missing, you may be able to resolve the failure by running the DirectX run-time package:
- D3DX9_24.DLL through D3DX9_43.DLL [note: including D3DX9_35.DLL]
- D3DX10.DLL through D3DX10_43.DLL
- D3DCompiler_33.DLL through D3DCompiler_43.DLL
- D3DX11_42.DLL
- D3DX11_43.DLL
- D3DCSX_42.DLL
- D3DCSX_43.DLL
- XACTENGINE2_0.DLL through XACTENGINE2_9.DLL
- XACTENGINE3_0.DLL through XACTENGINE3_7.DLL
- XAUDIO2_0.DLL
- XAUDIO2_1.DLL
- XAUDIO2_2.DLL
- XAUDIO2_3.DLL
- XAUDIO2_4.DLL
- XAUDIO2_5.DLL
- XAUDIO2_6.DLL
- XAUDIO2_7.DLL
- XAPOFX1_0.DLL through XAPOFX1_5.DLL
- X3DAUDIO1_0.DLL through X3DAUDIO1_7.DLL
- XINPUT1_1.DLL
- XINPUT1_2.DLL
- XINPUT1_3.DLL
Source:
Describes how to obtain the latest version of DirectX to enable games and multimedia applications on your system.
web.archive.org
Now, one does not necessarily have to know that. All one has to do is install the Runtime, as it is widely said on the Internet after having used a Search engine to find out what the error message is about. For some reason, you are thinking differently.
Now, should one require any other Runtime (Java, AIR, Python, VC++ etc.) to run something, then the right thing to do is obviously not to download any component of it one by one from any third-party web site, and then copy said file(s) into any unprotected folder in order for the software to hopefully work in the end. Therefore, you are supporting bad advice, and therefore you are making a great disservice to anybody who is using a computer on this planet, by saying in the OP that "Alternatively, as Hermit describes [...], you can Google & install the specific 'd3dx_9.dll' needed by Magos, though this may cause other problems with your system.)". This is irresponsible. His way is the wrong way, and you do not even have the decency to admit it. Learn your job, Mr Moderator Sir.
When one does an internet search about any missing DirectX component in his OS, any trustworthy posters from any decent and respectable web site will redirect people to any of the following pages by Microsoft:
I am encouraging people to install the DirectX9.0c Runtime (even on their Windows 10 64-bit OS) just as I did encourage
@Dr Super Good to do so in 2016 when I joined this community that did not help HeroEditor in 2020. I am also encouraging people to proactively install other Runtimes as well (and not specifically the ones from Microsoft, such as PowerShell 7 of .NET Core 3.1.x or .NET 5.x.x for example), so their computer is ready to run almost anything. As the administrators of your computers, it is your job to do it yourself and also, and also to read some software news on a semi-regular basis. It takes roughly 15 minutes to do each day, sometimes even less (it depends on what one is interested in).
Looking forward to your next entertaining post, if any.