SHDOCVW.DLL

[Evelyn]

My sister-in-law has a BIG problem:She has Windows XP she
doesn't know the make of the computer seeing that it was
made for her by her son-in-law.
After doing a restore to Jan 10th,it doesn't have
anything on the desk top except her wallpaper when she
starts her computer and this Message:
EXPLORER.exe: " This application has failed to start
because shdocvw.dll was not found. Re-installing the
application may fix the problem" Please help - my
computer is completely unusable!!
Can anyone tell me what this means,and IF this can be
corrected.
I'll be waiting for anyone reply,and Have A Great Day

 

[Dale Beaudette]

shdocvw.dll is a graphics related file and should be able to be reinstalled if the graphics card drivers are reinstalled or updated.
To do that you may need to go in through safe mode and remove the video card from the hardware profile (device manager). Once the
system is restarted normally the video card would be re-discovered and reinstalled adding the shdocvw.dll file.

If that isn't possible or doesn't work you might try manually extracting the file from the windows CD using the procedure in this
reference article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810608&Product=winxp

Substitute the file name shdocvw.dl_ as the file to decompress, the destination and source locations are the same. Again you may
need to work from safe mode or from the recovery console using a repair install if the normal startup will not cooperate. The
procedure for that is listed on this page:
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm
Recovery console use is covered by this reference
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q307654


--
Dale Beaudette

Associate Expert
The Expert Zone
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/default.asp