"winlogon.exe - SHLWAPI.dll is missing" screen message

[Chitope]

My PC was built up in 2006: Pentium 4 processor/4Gb memory/C Drive 85Gb/D Drive 120Gb/Asus Motherboard P5GPL-X.

In 2010 my son reinstalled the OS disc and repartitioned the drives. All went well until recently when I tried a System Restore from a Restore Point. After waiting for a couple of hours a screen error message appeared: "winlogon.exe-SHLWAPI.dll is missing and can not be located". I clicked OK and the PC restarted but I could not bootup to my Start Menu. I tried several times(10 times) but the error message still pops up and my PC won't bootup.

My son tells me to reinstall the OS disc, but I will lose all my files and some pricey application softwares. I know there are some good souls out there who may have some great ideas. Can someone help me figure this out? Thanks in advance.

Chitope

 

[WyomingKnott]

You could try putting the CD in and doing a repair installation.

Safest case: Make a backup file by file copy of the drive, using an external drive and a bootable backup utility such as EASEUS ToDo backup or PartedMagic's Clonezilla. Be sneaky and format the backup disc with FAT32, so all file protections will be removed. You now have a solid archive that you can always go to to get your files back, and you can fiddle with repair or reinstall without fear of losing everything.

One other possibility is to have the install use the existing OS partition; in theory, it should not wipe data files. In theory.

A question: You said it's partitioned. By any chance, is all of the data that you need on one partition and only the OS on the other? This can make the job easier.