MINIMIZING PLUG-IN DLL REPEAT INSTANTIATION

What is disclosed is a novel system and method for ensuring that plug-in DLLs are not unloaded and reloaded repeatedly during the course of a single user-initiated operation. A base driver process loads a plug-in DLL. If a manager thread responsible for this plug-in does not exist then a reference count for the plug-in DLL is incremented. Incrementing the system reference count ensures that the plug-in DLL remains loaded between base driver calls for all of the user-initiated operation by preventing the operating system from unloading the plug-in DLL. A manager thread is then created. The manager thread monitors active COM objects and checks if the base driver is still in memory. If no COM objects are found to be in use after a predetermined amount of time or if the base driver is no longer loaded in memory, the system reference count is decremented. The manager thread then exits.