Local Users and Groups Error

[Matt]

The Local Users and Groups on my system (Windows XP Pro) -
- accessed either through the MMC snap-in or through
Advanced User Management -- gives the following
error: "Unable to access the computer <computer name>.
The error was: Error loading type library/DLL>." I have
seemingly exhaused all of my options to debug and fix
this error. I have run sfc with with the /scannow
and /scanonce options. I have copied the DLL from
another machine (localsec.dll), purged the DLL cache and
installed the copied DLL. I have reverted back to the
original DLL. I have registered the DLL. None of these
have fixed the error.
Is there any way to trace this error to debug it
further? Are there any other solutions to this problem?
I have done extensive research over many days on the
Internet and the only solution seems to be to run
sfc /scannow. Since this did not fix the error, what
else can be done. I MUST be able to fix this as it
prevents the installation of other software that requires
access to Local Users and Groups to set up users. Please
offer debugging and other fixes besides running sfc. All
suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Matt]

I wanted to post a final follow-up on the solution to
this problem. It turned out I had a missing file,
activeds.tlb (this is the type library that was causing
the error), in the C:\Windows\System32 directory. I
discovered the missing file with the help of a tool
called filemon from Sysinternals (www.sysinternals.com).
I do not work for Sysinternals and have no monetary
relationship with them. However, in my attempts to debug
this problem I found that they had very good tools for
the job. I found out about this particular tool and my
missing file from a post on another web board at
www.computing.net (I have no relationship with them,
either).

In my opinion this problem took far too long to solve. I
literally spent days researching and attempting fixes for
the problem. This should have been about a five minute
exercise. But, and this is why I dislike Windows so
much, the help message sucked and there were no further
tools or logs to show me what had happened. "Error
loading type library/DLL".what the hell is that? What
type library? What DLL? Tell me what the %*&# you were
trying to do and I'll fix it! Neither the Application
Log nor System Log showed any error. I found no way to
turn any kind of tracing on. Only the filemon tool
actually showed me what the system was actually
attempting to do. Once I saw that I had a missing file,
boom, I copied the file to my system and, bam, everything
OK! If XP had given me some sort of log or good error
message this problem could have been fixed in minutes
instead of days. I was determined not to reinstall the
OS for what I figured was a small problem (which it
was).

I also thought XP had file protection. I guess it's just
for DLL's and OCX's and not the files they may also
depend on. If a TLB is protected than the protection
didn't work. And I don't think I'm the only dummy out
there, I came across many on the internet who complained
about the same problem. That is why I am posting the
fix, so the next one to come across the problem and
perform a search will actually find the answer in a
timely manner. I saw far too many posts with no
responses on XP 'expert' web boards!