DLLRegisterServer missing too often. What to do?

[Curt]

The dark clouds are gathering. They used to be on the horizon, in the distance, but now I feel they are threatening to cover my very neighbourhood. More and more often I will get this little error message saying this or that DLL couldn't be found, allthough they usually are where they ought to be. So I right-click the darn thing, and tell Explorer to register the DLL, but XP's RunDLL will answer that the DLLRegisterServer is missing.

I have no idea how to tell XP that the DLL Register Server is NOT missing, (I mean, it was here yesterday, wasn't it), but what can I do about it?    - other than to re-start the PC, and hope for the best of it, or re-install XP (which is not yet an option)?

[tinjaw]

Just some information. "DLLRegisterServer is missing." means that the function by that name (in the interface) is not being found. That is generally a sign of corruption of either memory or storage. If all of these DLLs are stored on the same location of your hard drive, for example if you used a "smart" defragger, that may be an indication of a portion of your HDD going bad. If rebooting solves the problem, then you are getting memory corruption and that is probably due to a rogue memory leak that is corrupting the memory spaces occupied by those DLLs.

[mwb1100]

Which DLLs do you find this problem?  Note that not all DLLs will have the DLLRegisterServer entry point - only DLLs that implement services used via COM will have it. Non-COM-based DLLs get found by a convoluted search of directories that includes certain well-known directories, the path and the location of the process loading the DLL (and the algorithm for this directory search may well be slightly different between different versions of Windows).

You might just have a problem with your path.

[tinjaw]

Good points mwb1100. Yes, my info is only relevant if these are COM DLLs that need to be registered. I wrongly assumed that was the case. mwb1100 is correct, there is a defined way to search for DLLs.

• The directory where the executable module for the current process is located.
• The current directory.
• The Windows system directory. The GetSystemDirectory function retrieves the path of this directory.
• The Windows directory. The GetWindowsDirectory function retrieves the path of this directory.
• The directories listed in the PATH environment variable.

[Curt]

My first step has been to ask Advanced Registry Doctor Pro to check for problems concerning any shared DLLs, and to search for broken links. I didn't check any other options. The answer was surprisingly dramatic (speaking of dark clouds around me, well, on my PC!):

DLLRegisterServer missing too often. What to do?

260 + 469

My response was even as dramatic: I held on to my breath and clicked FIX ALL!!
Time will show if more problems were created than fixed - so I might get back on this... 

Thanks a lot for your answers, tinjaw and mwb1100!