Serious USER32.DLL Problem

[Alkonium]

After installing the latest Windows Live Messenger on one of my computers, whenever it boots up, it fails and says that the user32.dll cannot be found. It uses Windows XP Media Center Edition. And suggestions?

[Astrotoy7]

There's a couple of things going on in this one

Just a quick question first though? >>Do you have SP3?

A particular component of the new WLM is checking for a new version of user32.dll

First you need to check if user32.dll is actually still in your system > its usually located in c>windows>system32.

whilst in there also check if you have dwmapi.dll. This is apparently the offending .dll and people have been deleting this as a workaround to thios problem. It recommend copy n pasting it elswhere. Totally removing a component of a program is never a good idea.

For more detailed info on user32.dll errors in general, read this KB article at MS
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/142676

mtfbwya

[Alkonium]

Yes, I do have SP3, but checking is impossible because the system won't boot up.

[Astrotoy7]

Can you get in via safe mode? Use the safe mode with networking off option if you can get in

If not, you may have to restore user32.dll via the recovery console (outlined in that article)

astro