I am hoping someone can help me....as my profile name indicates, I am not computer savvy. my son has an Asus laptop (new as of 3/10) that is running windows 7. yesterday he went to start up and received the message that Shell32.dll is missing from library and he should reinstall. He can't get into the OS to reinstall anything. he can; however, start in express mode which will get him onto the internet, so if there is something he needs to download, we can go that route. i appreciate any advice/help you can give! Thanks so much

Try to boot into safe (press F8 just as the system is booting up) if you can start in safe mode the chances are you have an infection, time to run Anti-virus / Anti-malware. If it fails in safe mode you can other options but as you have stated you are not savvy I would suggest you seek help. The Asus has a recovery partition which will restore the laptop BUT you may lose data, and you will be reinstalling any programs installed after purchase. If you can get to to a command prompt sfc /scannow will find and replace any missing / damaged system files.

THANK YOU! will try booting in safe mode at when i go home at lunch. he has been saying he will just do the recovery as he really hasn't installed any programs, so we'll see how the safe mode goes first. i guess i'm not a TOTAL dummie, i am able to navigate my way around the computer i just need some guidance. :) and i do appreciate your help!

Do the recovery as a last resort as you should find out the root cause if you can, it may be a sign the Harddrive is failing or that you need enforce some rules for your son. Game cheat sites / facebooking it and such are about the fastest way to get an infection today, make sure he NEVER clicks yes to download some codec or viewer from ANY facebook links no matter if think he knows who sent it or not.

will do. after reading your second paragraph...i'm thinking a cheat site may be the culprit. i will definately have ANOTHER discussion with him on this stuff. i wanted to run a norton antivirus yesterday but not sure how to even get to it as we can't get to his OS. one question...safe mode, is that the black screen that you type the backslashes, etc? that's the part that makes me the most nervous. afraid i'll screw that up.

Safe is just like booting into windows only it loads a BARE windows, it uses default drivers and does not load items which startup with a normal windows boot (spyware / malware and so on) you will see the desktop just in low res. If you can get into safe mode with networking you can run a A/V anti-malware scan. Malwarebytes and superantispyware and two of the better ones. you can run the portable version of SuperAntiSpyware from a USB drive if needed. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/9283/superantispyware-portable-is-the-must-have-spyware-removal-tool-you-need/

thanks alot for all your help and patience.

No problem, good luck....

well...didn't work. lol when i started in safe mode, i got the same errors. the first one is atbroker.exe "the program can't start becaause SHELL32.dll is missing from your computer. try reistalling program to fix", i click okay and it goes to explorer.exe with same message. i get into safe mode, black screen that says "safe mode" in all 4 corners but cannot go anywhere from there. any other thoughts? should i just do the restore? ugh i hate computers..lol..

did the restore and things are working fine. :) thanks again for your help. my son thanks you!

It’s great that things are working fine. There are several different ways that shell32.dll errors can show up on your computer. Shell32.dll error messages might appear while using or installing certain programs, when Windows starts or shuts down, or maybe even during a Windows installation. If you want to fix Shell3.dll error, you might refer to http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/shell32-dll-not-found-missing-error.htm Also for more info, click here