sfc.dll "contains an error"

Cheers, yes good to have up my sleeve. And I should have looked at the error log, there might be bad news about the state of the drive (all the user files are well backed up though). The machine had been through crashes some months ago (at the same time I gather USB connected devices were going off line, maybe more going on).

 

Yes could be; I am hoping this was a limited corruption from a crash, something like that, but a new drive may well be on the cards. Since sfc itself appears to be damaged, I figure I don't have a reliable sfc scan to report on the general state of the OS on disk (otherwise my first check; mmm while a check on hardware errors would have been a better first check).

If this damage is specifically something about the sfc system, interesting - and maybe logical if sfc is a hub of such functions - that all modes of in place repair seem to be blocked.

Cheers, brilliant; a safe download site I take it?

BTW, is there something like a database of hash checksums for Windows components (maybe what underpins sfc scans)?

 

Just covering my bases, I saw some possible explanations with Google searches along such lines; I get the impression registry errors can be behind almost any Windows problem .

Thanks; and a handy resource for checksums .

 

But can disk error checking fix a damaged file?

I was nervous an error message about sfc.dll could signal a quick fix might not be feasible, guessing this was damage to the repair system itself; indeed my time limited attempts with in place repair suggested so.
On my next visit I will give a USB boot sfc pass and then a reset a shot, but then yes, a reformat looks like a good suggestion that could avoid further time and pain. I'll report back (will be in a week or two, I won't attempt remote hands repair by phone).

 

I didn't make a record of (or trust) the links that were in the form of promotion for registry cleaners/"repair tools", but I did find an entry at answers.microsoft.com for msvcp140.dll with error status 0xc000012f (I can't post links) with a reply from "steve":

""0xc000012f" error is commonly caused by incorrectly configured system settings or irregular entries in the Windows registry"

I didn't find such a message about sfc.dll specifically, rather - as would be expected - the messages about sfc were how it can be used to repair errors (and not how to repair itself it turned out).

 

I spotted this too; filed to look more closely later to figure out if it can be trusted. Promising though.

Much appreciated; thanks.

PS All this has brought to my mind (non-urgent, to explore some time) how does sfc work (and what are the dependencies from in place system reset, DISM, etc.)? I have assumed sfc works on checksums in the dehydrated distribution libraries, but I expect there is rather more to it (and how so with such a small executable?).

 

Cheers, I didn't realise WOW64 was everything 32 bit, assuming core system files wouldn't be there. But I see it does make sense. I'll take a look; thanks.