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I just installed Wine for the first time and I am trying to get an old game running. It says that smackw32.dll is missing.

I don't have a Windows 98 machine to copy it from there, not even a Windows 98 CD. Google shows me sites offering the file, but I've never used such sites and I wonder if they're legit, because getting the user to copy a file into his own System32 folder sounds like a great malware vector. Besides, I'm not sure if the file there is Win98 compatible (the game doesn't work with a NT based Windows). Any suggestions where to get the file from?

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3 Answers

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Check out http://www.dll-files.com/

This is the one you need: http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?smackw32, click the download button in the grey "free download" box at the bottom.

dll-files.com is ok and offers what it says it does...

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Got it there, and it works - the dll itself at least. The game still doesn't run, but I'm on to the next error message o0 – rumtscho Aug 27 '10 at 22:20
@rumtscho Which is? – BloodPhilia Aug 27 '10 at 22:29
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smackw32.dll is a library for decompressing/viewing video files generated by Bink/Smacker video technology. While you can files from sites like dll-files, I'd recommend getting the file from the game's installation CD (if you have it)

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Why would you recommend that? – BloodPhilia Aug 27 '10 at 21:09
@BloodPhilia Avoid version mismatches for one. – Sathya♦ Aug 27 '10 at 21:15
Would be very unlikely to happen with this one... – BloodPhilia Aug 27 '10 at 21:23
Looking on the CD sounds good, but the file isn't there, just a bunch of other dlls. But thanks for pointing out that the dll-files site is safe. – rumtscho Aug 27 '10 at 22:18
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The smackw32.dll is part of the smacker video codec that was developed by Rad Game Tools and used by various game makers. Did you install the game in wine from the CD or disks, or did you just copy in the files? I ask because installing the game should also install all the required file into the correct location. If you just copy files you will probably miss files in other folders and some files also need to be added to the Windows registry, something else the install does for you. If you did run the install and are still missing the file try installing the smacker codec. You can find it many places, one I have used is codecs.com.

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Interesting idea. But the RAD video codec doesn't contain the smackw32.dll, I installed it and the file didn't appear in the system32 directory or in the codec directory itself. – rumtscho Aug 27 '10 at 22:14
@rumtscho My bad, I read through the page too quickly. I edited the link to a site I have not used before. – Beaner Aug 28 '10 at 1:34

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