Hello! Okay, I'm entering this in g'mic discussions because I think it's relevant: I've just downloaded gimp 2.8.14 (I actually already had it, but being a newbie, I messed up some things - so decided to erase and start over). Everything was great, gimp opened fine. So then I went to upload G'mic from http://gmic.eu/gimp.shtml. I follow the 'readme' note to install (- on Windows: 'C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.x\lib\gimp\2.0\plugins\')...but now Gimp won't start - instead I get a message stating "this program can't start because libgimpmodule-2.0-0.dll is missing from your computer" (actually, I found it in program files>Gimp2>bin). So do they mean restart all of gimp, or just g'mic? Thanks for any help!

IIRC Gimp 2.8.14 comes with G'MIC ready-installed (bundled). But that will probably now be an out of date version.

If you want to download the latest G'MIC (ie. version 1.6.5.0), install it to your user plugins folder (C:\Users\username\.gimp-2.8\plugins\) and leave the bundled version in your system plugins folder as it is.
So long as your folders are set-up correctly (in Edit>Preferences>Folders>Plugins) with your user folder listed first, Gimp will simply ignore the bundled version and use the one in your user folder.

Better still, create a "gmic" sub-folder in your user plugins folder specifically for G'MIC, install G'MIC with all its .dll files into that sub-folder and then add that sub-folder to the list of plugins folders under Edit>Preferences>Folders>Plugins. This will avert possible dll-clashes with other plugins in future.

I don't know how you managed to lose the .dll required by Gimp, but I think at this juncture probably the easiest thing to do would be to download Gimp afresh (yet again!) and then proceed as above.

BTW if the G'MIC readme file does actually tell you to install to the system plugins folder, then I think we should take that point up with David (Ronounours).

Ughs. Okay, am downloading gimp (yet again!)...just a note, the g'mic readme file also states:

Notes for Windows:

You may prefer to install the plugin for individual users and avoid having
to save into the program files folder. The location differs depending on
your version of Windows and can be configured in GIMP 2.8, for example:

- on Windows 7: C:\Users\%USERNAME%\.gimp-2.8\plug-ins

- on Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\.gimp-2.8\plug-ins

See the FAQ for more information.

Yes this just simply means instead of installing to the c:/Program Files/GIMP-2/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins folder install instead to
c:/users/USERNAME/gimp-2.8/plug-ins folder

You want to do this with all newer resources anyways so when you update GIMP again to the newest version you do not un install all previous installed resources.
You will notice under the gimp-2.8 directory are many resource folders such as brushes, gradients,plug-ins,scripts. This is where all new resources should be installed or placed. That is what this user directory and sub directory tree is for.
As an example if i wanted to install a new script (SCM) file i would place it here.
C:\Users\Rod\.gimp-2.8\scripts

question: I have gimp_extentions_v2.8_latest in my downloads from http://registry.gimp.org/node/27656. Just to verify, that's safe, right?

I do not use it . You can download and install these extensions directly and safely from our sister site
http://www.gimpscripts.com

Thank you for your help! Now a weird question: how do I access a gimp desktop shortcut? When I first downloaded gimp, a shortcut was given...but not this time.

never mind...I just pinned it to my taskbar

Omg, thank you!! First I tried just installing g'mic into my user programs...and gimp started, but I got this error message: gmic_gimp. exe_System Error The program can't start because libfftw3-3.dll is missing from your computer. Try re-installing the program to fix the problem...then I remembered what you wrote about stopping all dll-clashes. So I added the sub-folder to the list of plug-in folders. And everything is great! Even have g'mic's film emulation, which I previously did not have access to!

how to fix libgimpmodule-2.0-0.dll in 2021 any help?