I normally use Linux where, if I want programs to be able to encode video, once libXXXX.so is installed all programs which are aware of it can use it. By comparison, I have witnessed various programs install Microsoft VC++ Runtime on the same computer in succession -- I guess that means libraries are not shared on Windows.
I am playing around with a Windows machine which has Premiere Pro and Cinema 4D installed. Premiere Pro can encode h264 output but Cinema 4D can't. (In fact Cinema 4D can only output to AVI using Intel IYUV or Microsoft RLE or Microsoft Video 1 compressors, whereas Premiere Pro has many options.)
Is it the case that each application installs and manages its own codecs, or does this machine in fact have codecs which are accessible to Cinema 4D (and other programs in general) but it happens to be that this program has been misconfigured? Or what?
In a nutshell, how does this sort of thing normally work on Windows?