As others mentioned, most now sit alongside the executables. To give some historical perspective of why, check out this Wikipedia article on "DLL hell", more s

As others mentioned, most now sit alongside the executables. To give some historical perspective of why, check out this Wikipedia article on "DLL hell", more specifically the "DLL stomping" section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLL_Hell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLL_Hell