I found the image dlls (qgif4.dll, etc) under
C:\Qt\4.3.1\plugins\imageformats

and then needed to make a ".\imageformats" directory where the executable is and put the dlls in that.

It doesn't appear that I need a qt.conf file in case anyone else runs into the same problem.

This link wasn't that much help except that it showed me how to cut down on the dlls I was copying by using the depends tool (but it doesn't cover the image dlls)

http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/deploym...n-dependencies

p.s. unfortunately, I couldn't search for "gif" in the forums - the search mechanism rejected it as being too short.