Application crashes on Windows 8

Question

I have a third party application. On top of this application, we have developed an add-in using application provided C based toolkit, Python 2.5, WxPython 2.8 and SWIG 1.3.19.

When we run this application on Windows 8, it is crashing.

On Windows 7, the application is running fine with our add-in. However, on Windows 8, the application is crashing. I am attaching the crash trace herewith this details.

Following are the findings,

• On Windows 7, application is using the older GdiPlus.dll (6.1.7601.18834)
• On Windows 8, GdiPlus.dll is available with newer version 6.3.9600.17415. The older version of this dll 6.1.7601.18834 is not available at all on Windows 8 (C:\Windows\WinSxS folder)
• On Windows 8, application is crashing with newer version of GdiPlus.dll
• Independent application is loading the GdiPlus.dll newer version without any crash

In my add-in, whenever I try to instantiate the wxPython the application is crashes. It is trying to use some fonts from GdiPlus.dll and somehow it could not find it and it crashes with EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION

Questions :

• Is there any way to install lower version of GdiPlus.dll on Windows 8 6.1.7601.18834?
• How can I tell the third part application not to load the newer version of GdiPlus.dll and load the older version of it ?
• Is any other solution to this ?

Please let me know if you need any more information.

Regards, Paresh.