Win7 re-install.

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 17:06:49 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 09:07:06 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:17:14 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:13:48 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.


That's a draconian solution to a problem of a missing dll file. Why
not find the file and copy it to your system?

Thanks for all replies.

If I find the *.dll, can I simply copy this over from a distant
backup, or from the original installation DVD?

If that's all that's wrong, sure you can. It's at least worth a try.

Wouldn't SFC help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_File_Checker

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

Peter Jason wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:17:14 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:13:48 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.


That's a draconian solution to a problem of a missing dll file. Why
not find the file and copy it to your system?

Thanks for all replies.

If I find the *.dll, can I simply copy this over from a distant
backup, or from the original installation DVD?


Yes, though you may have to extract the file from its location on the
DVD. Additionally, it would be appropriate to use the same level
(Service Pack) DVD that is present on your system.

Possibly concern - that same dll may have been updated/replaced by a
Windows program or security update, thus the version on the DVD may or
may not be current.

--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

I agree with you Gene.

The SFC should be able to fix this but I seem to remember that it will
also entail all the updates needing to be applied again.

I would also consider doing a chkdsk /f in the usual command windows on
the drive to try and flush out other problems that might exist.

Finding and copying the missing .dll might fix things as long as that
..dll had not later been updated by one of windows update procedures.
That is why I would consider using the SFC method and then letting the
system update itself again.


On 9/17/2014 8:13 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 17:06:49 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 09:07:06 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:17:14 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:13:48 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.


That's a draconian solution to a problem of a missing dll file. Why
not find the file and copy it to your system?

Thanks for all replies.

If I find the *.dll, can I simply copy this over from a distant
backup, or from the original installation DVD?

If that's all that's wrong, sure you can. It's at least worth a try.

Wouldn't SFC help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_File_Checker

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:09:52 -0500, GlowingBlueMist wrote:

I agree with you Gene.

The SFC should be able to fix this but I seem to remember that it will
also entail all the updates needing to be applied again.

That's never happened to me with SFC.

My major problem with SFC is that it hasn't always helped :-)

I would also consider doing a chkdsk /f in the usual command windows on
the drive to try and flush out other problems that might exist.

Finding and copying the missing .dll might fix things as long as that
.dll had not later been updated by one of windows update procedures.
That is why I would consider using the SFC method and then letting the
system update itself again.

On 9/17/2014 8:13 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 17:06:49 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 09:07:06 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:17:14 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:13:48 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.


That's a draconian solution to a problem of a missing dll file. Why
not find the file and copy it to your system?

Thanks for all replies.

If I find the *.dll, can I simply copy this over from a distant
backup, or from the original installation DVD?

If that's all that's wrong, sure you can. It's at least worth a try.

Wouldn't SFC help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_File_Checker



--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:17:14 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:13:48 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.


That's a draconian solution to a problem of a missing dll file. Why
not find the file and copy it to your system?

Agreed. Besides, if it's a core Windows file, it seems like sfc (System File
Checker, I think it's called) should recognize that it's missing and either
silently pull it out of storage or at least prompt the user to provide it.
If it's instead a 3rd party .dll, reinstalling the 3rd party software that
relies on it would seem like one way to put it back in place.

--

Char Jackson

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:09:52 -0500, GlowingBlueMist
wrote:

I agree with you Gene.

The SFC should be able to fix this but I seem to remember that it will
also entail all the updates needing to be applied again.

I would also consider doing a chkdsk /f in the usual command windows on
the drive to try and flush out other problems that might exist.

Finding and copying the missing .dll might fix things as long as that
.dll had not later been updated by one of windows update procedures.
That is why I would consider using the SFC method and then letting the
system update itself again.


On 9/17/2014 8:13 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 17:06:49 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 09:07:06 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:17:14 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:13:48 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.


That's a draconian solution to a problem of a missing dll file. Why
not find the file and copy it to your system?

Thanks for all replies.

If I find the *.dll, can I simply copy this over from a distant
backup, or from the original installation DVD?

If that's all that's wrong, sure you can. It's at least worth a try.

Wouldn't SFC help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_File_Checker


Alas, the sfc found nothing. Trying chkdsk /f next...

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:09:52 -0500, GlowingBlueMist wrote:

I agree with you Gene.

The SFC should be able to fix this but I seem to remember that it will
also entail all the updates needing to be applied again.

That's never happened to me with SFC.

My major problem with SFC is that it hasn't always helped :-)

I would also consider doing a chkdsk /f in the usual command windows on
the drive to try and flush out other problems that might exist.

Finding and copying the missing .dll might fix things as long as that
.dll had not later been updated by one of windows update procedures.
That is why I would consider using the SFC method and then letting the
system update itself again.

On 9/17/2014 8:13 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 17:06:49 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 09:07:06 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:17:14 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:13:48 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.


That's a draconian solution to a problem of a missing dll file. Why
not find the file and copy it to your system?

Thanks for all replies.

If I find the *.dll, can I simply copy this over from a distant
backup, or from the original installation DVD?

If that's all that's wrong, sure you can. It's at least worth a try.

Wouldn't SFC help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_File_Checker




It might, sometimes SFC can be persnickety requiring it to be run
multiple times to find and repair something. Also sometimes running from
a command prompt in Safe Mode produces better results.

One can also run SFC with the 'verify' command from the command prompt
sfc /verifyonly

Earlier versions of sfc had difficulty determining the good file vs. the
bad file or the current file vs an earlier replaced file.

SFC logs its findings in C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. Viewing the log
file can be messy trying to find what SFC couldn't fix. If attempted
look for the SR specifier.

This command from a elevated command prompt can be used to pull
applicable 'SR' data from that log file by placing a shorter file on the
user's desktop (once done it can be deleted)

findstr /c:"[SR]" %windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log
"%userprofile%\Desktop\sfcdetails.txt"


It's also a good idea to ensure one has the current Windows version and
Service Pack level Win7 media since it may prompt for it if it can't
find current files on the system (from initial install and updates).

It's been some time since I've seen SFC actually negate an update
causing Windows Update to later offer that same update later.


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

On 9/17/2014 1:13 AM, Peter Jason wrote:
Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.
Also Acrobat10 occasionally gives an error message "Acrobat failed to
send a DDE command".
There's a repair disk but I thought a reinstall over the original
might restore any missing files. Is there a standard procedure, and
will all the intervening upgrades be lost?
Peter

Have you first tried the Acrobat resources?

https://forums.adobe.com/message/4795337

Peter Jason wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 07:17:14 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:13:48 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.

That's a draconian solution to a problem of a missing dll file. Why
not find the file and copy it to your system?

Thanks for all replies.

If I find the *.dll, can I simply copy this over from a distant
backup, or from the original installation DVD?

There's a tool here which might come in handy.

"PendMoves and MoveFile"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb897556

One thing to keep in mind, is files are hard-linked on Windows 7.
I'll give an example. This example is collected with "ls -Ri" in
Linux, on the Windows 7 C: partition. (I use Linux to analyse Windows,
so there are no hidden files etc.)

When you list files in Linux, they are given inode numbers. For
completeness, the Linux NTFS driver "fakes" inode numbers. A side-effect
benefit of this, is we can tell whether a file is hard-linked or
not.

I extracted examples from a couple places in the output. The
"winsxs" is the Windows File Store, a place where files for the
OS are managed. Some of the maintenance done on the OS, is done
directly on winsxs and not on the OS folders themselves. You can
see some kind of revision information is stored in the path.
And in my example, the "store" has three versions of the shell32.dll
file.

74622 Windows/System32/shell32.dll --- the file that does important things for Explorer

../Windows/winsxs/x86_microsoft-windows-shell32_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.18222_none_6e23a 7cf70481239:
13732 apps.inf
74622 shell32.dll --- the *exact* same file, only a different file pointer to it

../Windows/winsxs/x86_microsoft-windows-shell32_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.21890_none_6e5fb 4d889a01b0e:
13732 apps.inf
51949 shell32.dll --- some other version, parked in the store

../Windows/winsxs/x86_microsoft-windows-shell32_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.22015_none_6ebb0 fb2895aeaa2:
13732 apps.inf
59421 shell32.dll --- some other version, parked in the store

So Windows/winsxs/x86_microsoft-windows-shell32_31bf3856ad364e35_
6.1.7601.18222_none_6e23a7cf70481239/shell32.dll is the same file
as Windows/System32/shell32.dll. They use the same clusters for
storage.

file_pointer_number_1 ---+
+----- clusters for 74622
file_pointer_number_2 ---+

If you delete file_pointer_number_1, it has no impact on the
second pointer, or the data clusters. If you delete *both*
file pointers, then the reference to the clusters is lost
and the file is finally deleted. In a way, the file is
only deleted, when the reference count is zero.

So if you were to tell me "my shell32.dll is deleted", well,
maybe and maybe not. If one of the two file pointers is lost,
then the file is actually still there. For example, doing
"del shell32.dll" while in one of the two directories, all
it achieves is removing a file pointer. The space taken by
the file is still taken.

So if you do have a (recent) backup of the file system, there's more
to it than just copying the file. You'd want to try to
do a good job of maintaining the state of winsxs as well.
I would attempt to hard link the file, which means copying
it in one place, and then using whatever passes for a mklink
program, to make the second reference. The order of creation
doesn't matter. In the above diagram, the two file points
have equal priority, and neither pointer is "special". You
could copy the file to winsxs and hard link to System32, or
you could copy to System32 and hard link to winsxs. By placing
the linkage in there, that allows any winsxs maintenance processes
to work properly.

If the OS is fighting you, you could use the PendMove idea to
achieve the first copy (if it is really necessary). Then,
research how to make the hard-link. I would probably
attempt to "PendMove" Windows/System32/shell32.dll first,
then after the system reboot, go back and forge the
hard-link into winsxs.

The kind of link you would want to make, is the /H kind.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/

Note that the syntax tradition of making links, is to put
them in the wrong order in the command. I would have
expected "from -- to" as a syntax, whereas the syntax
is "to -- from". The "to" is the new hard-link.

Note that the above is not written as a recipe. It's
to make you think, and then come up with a plan.

Paul

Al Drake wrote:
On 9/17/2014 1:13 AM, Peter Jason wrote:
Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.
Also Acrobat10 occasionally gives an error message "Acrobat failed to
send a DDE command".
There's a repair disk but I thought a reinstall over the original
might restore any missing files. Is there a standard procedure, and
will all the intervening upgrades be lost?
Peter

Have you first tried the Acrobat resources?

https://forums.adobe.com/message/4795337

Well that should save Peter some time :-)

Paul

Gene E. Bloch wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:09:52 -0500, GlowingBlueMist wrote:

I agree with you Gene.

The SFC should be able to fix this but I seem to remember that it
will also entail all the updates needing to be applied again.

That's never happened to me with SFC.

My major problem with SFC is that it hasn't always helped :-)

+1


--
Sir_George

On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 02:35:46 -0400, . . .winston wrote:

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:09:52 -0500, GlowingBlueMist wrote:

Long thread, including useful ideas from ...winston about better ways
to make use of SFC, clipped for brevity

Actually, I suspect that in my case SFC sometimes didn't help because
those particular problems weren't due to corrupted or missing system
files.

But if I had followed your advice, perhaps I could have learned
otherwise :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 17/09/2014 1:13 AM, Peter Jason wrote:
Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.
Also Acrobat10 occasionally gives an error message "Acrobat failed to
send a DDE command".
There's a repair disk but I thought a reinstall over the original
might restore any missing files. Is there a standard procedure, and
will all the intervening upgrades be lost?
Peter

There is one way to reinstall the OS without losing all of your
applications and data. That is to run the In-Place Upgrade Install
option of Windows.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows
Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2255099

But make sure you have the original sticker for your machine, and that
it hasn't rubbed off in anyway.

Yousuf Khan

On 9/19/2014 9:50 AM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 17/09/2014 1:13 AM, Peter Jason wrote:
Win7 pro SP1

I have the original starter disk and I want to re-install Win7 because
there's a *.dll file missing somehow.
Also Acrobat10 occasionally gives an error message "Acrobat failed to
send a DDE command".
There's a repair disk but I thought a reinstall over the original
might restore any missing files. Is there a standard procedure, and
will all the intervening upgrades be lost?
Peter

There is one way to reinstall the OS without losing all of your
applications and data. That is to run the In-Place Upgrade Install
option of Windows.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows
Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2255099

But make sure you have the original sticker for your machine, and that
it hasn't rubbed off in anyway.

Yousuf Khan

and a complete list of installed upgrades so you can return your system
to the same status

On 19/09/2014 10:54 AM, Zaidy036 wrote:
On 9/19/2014 9:50 AM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
There is one way to reinstall the OS without losing all of your
applications and data. That is to run the In-Place Upgrade Install
option of Windows.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows
Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2255099

But make sure you have the original sticker for your machine, and that
it hasn't rubbed off in anyway.

Yousuf Khan

and a complete list of installed upgrades so you can return your system
to the same status

Or just upgrade it to all of the most recent patches on Windows Update.
Simple.

Yousuf Khan