A solution for SOME cases "msls51.dll not found"

Recently had a system and looked at other threads here about the issue. System had XP and would start up with lsass.exe error "This application has failed to start because msls51.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix the problem."

Trouble is due to wireless/usb mouse and keyboard or event straight replacement NOTHING could be done on the system even in safe mode.

Instead of reformatting and starting from square one, try this solution -

1/ remove Hard drive from system

2/ Go to another system with same operating system (in this case XP)

3/ Add hard drive preferably using an external USB drive ro as a secondary drive on the main board.

4/ Start system, and open windows explorer

5/ Open the extra drive you have added to the system (NOT normally C) and open folder

Windows\system32

6/ locate uxthemes.dll and probably a similarly named file
uxthemes-xxxxxx.dll (xxxxx is either a random number
or REPxxxx)

7/ Delete these files

8/ Open your main system drive C:\windows\system32
copy the SINGLE file uxthemes.dll from there to the extra drive \windows\system32.

9/ shutdown / remove drive from this system
reinstall in original system

System will now start up correctly, then run every standard scanning tool for malware/virus to make sure all remnants are removed.

 

Yes it is often associated with malware but often I have found only HALF of the problem is removed as the calling dll (uxthemes.dll) has not been fixed, so everything locks up as it cannot get necessary access to relevant dlls or user I/O.

I have not yet found a working system where msls51.dll was there at all.

This post was information (as in title "A soultion...) for when systems cannot be accessed at all due to this error as this information was missing from previous threads.

This saves having to reformat and start again as often users have next to no backups.