Windows Side-by-Side assemblies (WinSxS) are similar to this. Each assembly or .dll contains a manifest that list its dependencies by version and token id. The

Windows Side-by-Side assemblies (WinSxS) are similar to this. Each assembly or .dll contains a manifest that list its dependencies by version and token id. The OS dynamically loads the dependencies based on the manifest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-by-side_assembly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-by-side_assembly This was introduced in Windows 2000 and used for core OS components starting with Windows Vista.