Vista Ultimate problem with"shlwapi.dll"

six-h

six-h

Distinguished Member
Oh what have I done!!
Been getting the occasional message that "Windows Explorer has stopped working"; in it's self, not a problem, more an irritation, just clicking the "red X" gets rid of the message and I can continue browsing.

Today, I decided to "sort it"..........mistake, huge mistake!
The error detail was something to do with "InPageCoFire", I did copy and paste it into notepad, but that and everything else is now inaccesible!

The googled wisdom was to do a diskcheck and tick both boxes to attempt recovery of any bad sectors, which I unfortunately did.

At step 4 of the diskcheck, it advised that it had "Replaced bad clusters in file 144067 of name Windows\System32\shlwapi.dll"

When Windows re-booted, any attempt to open files was met with "Windows Explorer has stopped working" and the error detail says "Event: - APPCRASH, Faulting Module: - SHLWAPI.DLL"

"Safe Mode" and "Last known good config." cannot get past this error and I am unable to access "System Restore".

I do have Acronis Images of my full system on an external drive, but they are not recent, so that would mean losing a lot of data as well as installations which would be painful to manually restore. :shame:

Is there some way that I can:
A) back-up my files.
B) replace this errant file (shlwapi.dll) using a copy from a previous image.....if possible, this would be the least painful option.

I'm presuming that despite the state of my OS, I could still "Image" the system to secure the current state of my files.

I think I've explained before that this OS is running on a volume licence belonging to a local school who kindly allowed me to continue running it after I had ceased to teach a beginners IT class.
I cannot therefore three years on, ask them to repair it using their disk.

Can you advise me the best and most pain free course of action? :scared:


Update:
I've managed to access System Restore by right clicking it in Control Panel and selecting "Open" from the context menu.......don't know why that works!
No matter, restored to previous day, and subsequently to the day before that but the problem still exists :frowning:
 
Last edited:
Option (b) sounds like the best shot. You won't lose any data, and shlwapi.dll shouldn't have changed in that time period.
 
Hi Mahmoud, thanks for comming to my rescue!
Someone introduced me to "sfc/scannow" (I didn't realise it was lurking in the "Safe mode with command prompt" option!)

That seems to have done the trick but it reported that there were faulty "files" found, some of which it couldn't fix and these were listed in a .log file.....to which I'm denied access! lol
I've tried to "Take Control" of said file, but it's like trying to tie eels in knots I've made several changes to the ownerships, but without success.
No matter, all seems to have returned to normal!....well, for Vista!

Maybe now would be a good time to image the system!
The last one I did was when I installed servicepack two in March 2010.:S
 
Thanks Mahmoud, but thereby hangs the tail, I don't have any form of installation disk so I'll just have to rely on good old Acronis!
To tell the truth, I'm just hanging on to see which OS to go for next, W7 or W8.
I've downloaded the W8 beta tester from the PC Advisor site and burned the ISO To disk, but can't get it to boot on my old Dell Optiplex GX280 that is running Linux Mint 9.
The instructions to install confuse me, it looks as though they expect you to install it from within Windows rather than use the disk to boot from...odd.
Anyway, I can't check the ISO File is OK because the download didn't include a checksum #
Might have another go when the RC1 is offered, possibly January.
At the moment, I'm sorely tempted to go for W7, I expect there will be some bargains available early next year.
 
It's not uncommon for sfc /scannow to be unable to fix some issues. It can be for so many different reasons, but a common one is that whatever the file is has been replaced by a more recent version in the updating process.

If your system functions OK then I wouldn't pay too much heed to its results as long as it keeps it working! :wink:

To read the CBS log you may have to take ownership of it and there is a tute here. Method one will add 'Take Ownership' to the right-click context menu.

Take Ownership of file - Vista Forums
 
Hi Peter,
Managed to access the file using the following from an elevated command prompt.
findstr /c:"[SR]" %windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log >%userprofile%\Desktop\sfcdetails.txt
Click to expand...

Wow! that sounds good doesn't it!!
Truth to tell, someone on another forum told me what to do. lol

Can't say that it has enlightened me though, I don't understand a word of it!
File saved for possible future disection!
 
Don't know if the content of the sfc/scannow report mean anything sinister, but here's the file in case anyone can decipher it! :grinning:
 

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