'comctl32.ocx' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered

[Doug]

Vista on conventional PC, Vista Home Premium 32 bit,
4 GB RAM and 160 GB free space on C:\

Recently, when opening MS Word documents, I see this message: "Component
'comctl32.ocx' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered; a file
is missing or invalid."

I have this file:
C:\Windows\System32\comctl32.ocx

How do I re-register it? And what does registration mean in this context?

In the normal way I would revert to an earlier restore point, but I find
that the only one restore point listed is this morning's, and the problem
arose yesterday.

When I Google I see endless data but no directly helpful information. Any
nudge in the right direction will be much appreciated.

Doug

 

[Chris Jolly]

To register it start the command prompt (in admin mode). Change to the
c:\windows\system32 folder if not there already. Then do: regsvr32
comstl32.ocx
If successful you should get a popup saying "DllregisterServer in
comscl32.ocx succeeded"