When booting computer or launching a particular application, the following error message or a similar one may show up: "missing shdoclc.dll" or "missing startup file .DLL, SHDOCLC.DLL" or similar errors.

This computer problem is quite common. The shlwapi.dll is a windows dll that comes with Internet Explorer; since Internet Explorer is integrated with the operating system, any shlwapi.dll errors may cause troubles with Internet Explorer as well as other Windows processes, but also to third party applications that may be calling the shlwapi.dll file for their own purposes. The shlwapi.dll file is likely to be protected by the operating system so any attempts to manually update the file may not work.

There are more ways to fix shlwapi.dll file errors:

1) Go to the Windows Update website, and use the update process in order to obtain the latest version of the shlwapi.dll file. The Windows Update website should be able to detect missing or corrupted dll shlwapi.dll file on your computer and to ugprade it

2) You can also download Internet Explorer from Microsoft and install it on your computer; this should fix shlwapi.dll errors you are experiencing. Make sure you are obtaining the correct Internet Explorer version for the operating system version you are having.

3) Use the Internet Explorer repair tool available on the Microsoft website - here. This tool may not be compatible with all Internet Explorer versions so make sure it works for you. This tool is able to fix the shlwapi.dll errors for you, if it is compatible with the operating system versions you are having.

Downloading the shlwapi.dll file from the Internet and attempting to manually place it on your computer is not recommended as this has little chances to succeed since the shlwapi.dll file comes in a large number of versions and they are quite different so it isvery difficult to find the exact shlwapi.dll file you need, since you most likely do not know what version you need. Use the above recommended procedures to fix your shlwapi.dll errors.

Owners of Windows 9x operating systems can fix shlwapi.dll errors by downloading Internet Explorer versions available for their operating system from Microsoft. A download page for Internet Explorer for older Windows 9x operating system is provided here. Good luck!