GD function library problems

I recently completed the development of a project that makes use of some of the GD library of image functions. I used XAMPP as the development platform on my own PC and then uploaded to my hosting companies 'live' server. It was then that I found some of the GD image functions were not available on their system, even though these functions have been around a long time, and the hosting company appeared to offer a recently updated library. Further investigation suggests this is a not uncommon problem and may be due to there being two versions of the GD library - a 'bundled' one and an external one. This raises two important points. Firstly, does anyone on this list have any up to date information on the background to this problem - in particular any advice that can be passed on to hosting companies. The second is a word of warning to anyone about to embark on a project that makes use of these functions - first check the ones you want to use are available from your hosting service. I had particular problems with the imagerotate() function. Fortunately someone has posted a user defined workaround that has got me out of trouble. However, I can see from other discussion boards that other functions are involved as well. Any ideas? Alan Bannister