Thor Schrock

DLLs or Dynamic Link Libraries were introduced with the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system to ensure effective usage of system resources and disk space. These files comprise program executables that can be loaded and unloaded when required. There are hundreds of DLL files on your computer. Some of these are shipped with your Windows operating system and some are registered later when you install new software and device drivers.

With such a large amount of DLL files on a single computer, a very small issue can give rise to several DLL errors and put your PC in DLL hell. Let us have a look at some of the common causes of DLL errors and the steps you can take to resolve them.

Missing DLL errors, such as “Program_File_Name failed because MSVCR71.dll was not found.” are one of the most common DLL errors. These errors usually occur, if:

• You install a faulty software or device driver. If you downloaded the software or device driver generating DLL errors from the Internet they might be buggy. At times, the CD/DVD with which you performed the installation may be faulty, or your installation may be faulty. So, the first step to prevent DLL and other errors is to ensure that your setup files are intact to avoid any problems during installation.
• Outdated program files exist on the system. You need to update your operating system, applications and device drivers on a regular basis. If you do not do this, errors will happen. To update Windows, you may enable the Windows Automatic Update feature, and to update drivers, you may use the Device Manager utility.
• A newer version of the file reported missing was overwritten by an older version. Be careful while installing new software and avoid overwriting newer DLL file versions. If you do this by mistake, try to search for an updated version for your program and install it to try and resolve your DLL error. You may also try to search for and download the new DLL file version from an online DLL database library.
• Virus infections. Virus programs infect program executables and DLL files and prevent them from working normally. To fix problems due to virus infections, you must update your antivirus tool and perform a thorough full system scan to detect and repair these errors.
• Registry problems. All DLL files are registered in the Windows registry. So, if there is a problem with the DLL file entry, it may result in an error. Although you can manually fix registry problems using the regedit tool, it is recommended that you use a good registry tool to scan and repair incorrect DLL entries.

At times, you may have applications that may need to use different versions of the same DLL file. To enable this, some Windows operating systems support the use of the WinSxS folder (side-by-side cache) instead of the default C:\System32 folder. DLL errors, such as “This application has failed to start because MSVCR80.dll was not found. Re-installing the application might fix the problem.” may occur if there is a problem with a file in the WinSxS folder. Most of the time, you can resolve the error by reinstalling the application that is generating the error. If you are unable to do so, then you may have to contact the software manufacturer for a solution.

Errors such as “Xvidcore.dll not found” are generated if you do not have a software that is required to run a particular type of file. For example, the Xvidcore.dll error given here occurs when you try to play an XviD media file and you do not have XviD codec on the system. To resolve such errors, you will need to install the required codec or driver.