DLL, short for Dynamic Link Library, is Microsoft’s implementation of the shared library concept in its Windows operating system. The file formats for DLLs are the same as for Windows executable EXE files containing code, data, and resources with the extension usually ended with DLL.
At any given time on a running Windows system, there could be a lot of DLL files loaded and used by system services or many running applications. But there is not a tool out of the box that displays how many of them are running and used by which applications.
LoadedDllsView by NirSoft is a simple free portable tool that scans all running processes on your system and displays the list of all DLL files loaded by these processes and the number of processes that load each DLL in the list. Simply download the tool from its website and run the executable file wrapped in the zipped file to launch the application.
You can select a specific DLL file on the list to see the list of all processes that use the selected DLL at the bottom pane of the tool. You can also select one or more DLL files and then export the list into comma-delimited/tab-delimited/html/xml file.
There are a few filter options available in the Options menu you can choose from, Show 32-bit DLLs, Show 64-bit DLLs, or Show Only Non-Microsoft DLLs.
You won’t be able to terminate any DLL files or the processes that use the selected DLL file right from the tool but you get to know which processes to kill if a selected DLL needs to be released or replaced.