I have downloaded a built version of zlib1.dll from the zlib web site (http://zlib.net) and copied the file into the bin folder of the emacs 24.4 distribution. This fixes the problem, as this version of zlib does not have a dependency on libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll.

Regards
Bill Farmer

On 26/11/2014 03:47, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
Please try to find the DLLs loaded into the Emacs binary that does crash. I don't see any other way of finding out what caused it. Somewhere on your system there is a DLL that depends on libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll, and finding it is the way to solve this riddle. Thanks.