How to Restore DLL Files on Your Computer

MissingKissing

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posted on 19 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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DLL files are shared libraries that provides functionality for Windows and many programs. DLL files contain modules that multiple programs can use to perform certain tasks. Since multiple programs can share the same file, they help reduce disk space and RAM usage on your computer and improve efficiency. However, sometimes they can get corrupted either by other programs overwriting them, or from hard disk errors.[1]
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But don't worry, this wikiHow article will teach you how to repair DLL files.

Steps

Open Command Prompt. Type Command Prompt into the search bar next to the Start button Windows Start.

Click or tap "Run as administrator" in the right menu of the result that comes up. Then, click or tap Yes in the UAC prompt that comes up. If you are not an administrator, then you will need to contact the administrator to fix the problem.

Type (or copy and paste) DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth into Command Prompt. Then, press ↵ Enter. This command ensures that the files in the component store are not corrupted. The component store is where backed up Windows files that are known to be good are stored, and when you repair Windows, the DLL files from the component store will replace the corrupted DLL files. If the command finds any corruption, then it will download good versions of the files from Windows Update. If this command does not work, then that means that Windows Update is broken. In this case, you will need to reinstall Windows.

Run the SFC scan. Type SFC /scannow into Command Prompt, and then press ↵ Enter. Then wait for the scan to finish. SFC stands for "System File Checker", and it scans all system files to check for errors.

Review the SFC scan results. The scan can finish with one of the following messages: "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations". - This means that there are no corrupted DLL files. The problem lays somewhere else. "Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation". - This means that an error occured and the scan could not run. Restart your computer and boot into safe mode. Then, try to run the scan again. "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them". - The corrupted DLL files have been fixed. "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them". - The DLL files could not be repaired because there are not valid replacements in the component store. Try to run the DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth command and then try again. If the repair sill fails, then you will need to reinstall Windows.