I couldn't reproduce either of these problems. For the first problem, this may be because of a known problem on Windows 9X. Some first chance exceptions (access violations) are generated in gdi32.dll when using some features of our ActiveX controls. This is actually a mishandling of the GDI error reporting in Win 9X and happens with most ActiveX controls. The good news is, it doesn't effect the performance of the control since it is just a bad error report in debug mode. However, those exceptions usually appear in gdi32.dll not GDI.exe so I'm not sure it is the same.
As for the second problem, I couldn't reproduce it. I put this line in a project and had no problems building.
Best Regards,
Chris Matthews
Measurement Studio Support Manager