WoW64.dll Deleted

[Bill Boeing]

Hello,

I am new to the forum and somewhat literate with Windows, but this has completely baffled me:

I started up my notebook, an Acer 5942G, which then prompted a disc check. I thought to let it go ahead, since it has been running slowly recently due to a full HDD (I just yesterday cleared 100GB out of it onto an external HDD). It ran successfully and it continued to startup. Logged in, waited for it to load, the same old stuff but my antivirus software was apparently switched off. If I didn't do it, possibly I have a virus? I went to open it but it came up with an error:

C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\wow64.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support.

I searched around and saw a download for a wow64.dll. I downloaded it from another PC just in case I couldn't mend it beforehand. No browsers I have work, so Internet surfing isn't an option. I used CCleaner's registry cleaner but that failed to work. Tried restoring registry from previous CCleaner registry flea ups but to no avail. I checked where it was and it read 0 bytes I vaguely remember wow64.dll being listed on the disc check when I watched it. Why would disc check delete such a vital component? I tried using "regsvr32 /s wow64.dll" and "regsvr32 wow64.dll" but all I got was:

The module "wow64.dll" was loaded but the entry-point DIIRegisterServer was not found.

Make sure that "wow64.dll" is a valid DLL or OCX file and then try again.

I then tried "sfc /scannow" but it didn't rectify anything. I decided to try the downloaded wow64.dll file and replace it. After switching permissions to the admin (me), I went about in renaming the old file to wow64old.dll and replacing it with the new wow64.dll file. An error arose in the form of,

The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000005). Click OK to close the application.

System restores don't work either, they fail to complete. I recently tried the "sfc /scannow" method but it got to 76% verification and wrote:

Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.

Most of these were also tried again in safe mode. The last resort is a recovery disc but I have no PC with an optical drive which can burn discs. Are there any other methods I could try? I am wuite desperate as it has all of my work on it. For now, I may just use a Ubuntu bootable.

Thank you for any advice, I will be very grateful.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

What is your Windows version?

You should never download DLL files. Replace it from another PC only if it is sure that it is the same version.

The first option should always be the System File Checker (sfc), then System Restore. If that does not work, the only option left is a Windows Repair installation.

[Bill Boeing]

I'm glad to say it has worked! I'm not sure why I didn't think of your advice sooner; I went into my father's Windows 7 64-bit .dlls and copied the wow64.dll file into mine. Thanks for the tip!