missing dll prevents firefox and affects explorer too.

[cajun]

HI

I'd really appreciate some help. My mother bought a laptop 18 months ago and I installed firefox on it for her and safer browsing. In February she suddenly found it did not work at all (the fox). An error message appears saying that the dll usp10.dll is missing. We have tried uninstalling re-downloading and installing firefox (newer versions). It does not work. She tried to do a system restore and it came back saying unsuccesful. She now uses internet explorer but the drop down menues don't work. When on a website (like booking a plane ticket,) the drop down box is blank.

I also can't get Java to work. I uninstalled it and downloaded the latest Java, but when I try to install it I get "error25099" and the same message about the missing dll.

I got advice to run sfc /scannow, but it did not find/fix anything as far as i can tell.

I know that downloading dll's from the net is dangerous, I have found a copy of usp10.dll on the drivers disk that came with the laptop, how do I know this is the right file? and where should I copy it to on the hardrive if it is?

Thanking you in advance for you patience and assistance

[Tashandra]

Hi,
Have you tried inserting your windows disk and telling it to try to fix your install? It might not help but it's always possible that it could notice the missing file and replace it.

[penthicilea]

The windows disk has a warning on it and instructions that will reformat my drive I think.

[kaninelupus]

The windows disk has a warning on it and instructions that will reformat my drive I think.

Is it an OEM restore disk or a full Windows disk?? If the latter, should be able to run within Windows (not as a boot disk) and run the system repair without completely reinstalling.

[cajun]

There are 2 disks
One says operating system recovery cd, and that has the warning on it.

The other disk says drivers and utilities. there is a copy of the dll on there which I have copied into my system32/dllcache folder to no effect.
I then put a copy of the dll into firefox folder directly and it's working. However I still get errors from windows about the missing dll, for example when I try to install java.

would love to know how to properly restore/repair the system

[kaninelupus]

OK, this is going to sound a little odd, but given that your drivers and utilities are stored on second disk, is starting to make me think the "recover disk" may actually be and OEM build of Windows on the disk itself, rather than an actual recover disk (which accesses the Windows installation file on a hidden partition.)

Load the recovery disk in the DVD drive. If it auto-runs, kill the process (may have to use the Task Manager if no option to close in the start-up itself). Open "Computer/My Computer" and right-click on the DVD drive > select "open".

If you can take a screenshot and upload to ImageShack, we can see what we are dealing with. To take a screen shot, use the "print screen" (or Prt Sc) button, load up Paint and paste in and save.

[IMG]http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/1252/installexplorer.jpg[/IMG]