hi spud,

that was a good tip...
anyway, it lead to something completely different: to use depends, i had to install vc++ on the destiantion system. after installing vc++, the problem was gone. i think the following is going wrong here:

i deploy the application like described in the Qt docs ('Deploying an Application on Qt/Windows'), having the qt dlls and the c/c++ runtimes in the applications directory and the plugins in an ./imageformats subfolder. with a prior version of my app (based on qt 4.1, i think), that worked on xp destination systems without c/c++ runtimes installed into the winsxs side-by-side cache through other applications.

however, with this version based on 4.2.3, the app starts on a system without other c/c++ runtimes, i.e. uses the runtimes i install locally, but the plugins don't. strange. i'll be after that.

thanks,

sepp