Tips on Troubleshooting Strange Error Messages
You may encounter many different types of strange error messages while working on your Windows computer. These errors may not only prevent you from working on your PC, but may also cause unnecessary frustrations.
Listed below are a few easy tips to help you troubleshoot strange error messages and resolve them.
When an error message is displayed, ensure that:
- Your system meets the requirement to perform a particular task
- Program and DLL files required to run a software are not corrupt, damaged, or missing
- Use Recovery Console to extract and copy the faulty file from the Windows XP installation CD.
- Perform System Restore to revert your system to the time when there was no error.
- Reinstall the operating system—use this method as the last resort.
- Your system is free of Malware infections
- Windows registry is free of unwanted data and errors
Many computer errors occur if your system does not have the required software, hardware, or driver to open a particular file.
For example, if you try to play an XviD movie on your computer and you do not have XviD codec installed on the PC, the missing xvidcore.dll error may be generated. In this case, to resolve the error, you will have to obtain and install the XviD codec and then attempt to play your media file again.
Rundll and other program errors, like the one given below, may occur if a required DLL or program file are missing from the system or are corrupt:
rundll32.exe - Unable To Locate Component
This application has failed to start because framedyn.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.
The first thing you can do to resolve such error messages is to try to replace the file that is reported as corrupt or missing. If the file belongs to a software application, the best thing to do will be to reinstall the application or update it.
It is recommended that you first uninstall the faulty application, using the Add or Remove Programs utility or a reliable third-party program uninstaller and then perform the reinstallation.
If a system file is corrupt, you may perform the following tasks to replace the missing file:
If error messages start appearing all of a sudden, it may be an indication of some kind of malware infection. Malware programs, such as virus, Trojans, and spyware may infiltrate your PC through infected email attachments, freeware and shareware software, open network shares, and infected external media that you may connect to your PC.
To prevent these malicious infections, you need to install and configure essential security tools, such as firewall, antivirus and antispyware on your Windows PC. You must regularly perform full system scans using the antivirus and antispyware tools to detect and remove any malicious information.
As you work on your PC, a lot of data is added and removed from the registry. Quite often, information that is no longer required stays behind in the registry causing the registry to bloat up to a very large size.
A large, bloated registry becomes unstable and starts generating various computer errors. To prevent and fix registry problems, you need to scan the registry and rectify the detected errors. To do this task, you may use a reliable and easy-to-use third-party registry repair utility.
