How to fix the missing msvcp110.dll

I just turned on my computer and got an error from "explorer.exe" which says that msvcp110.dll is missing.

Why that might happen, and how do I fix that? There are several sites that "provide" missing dlls, but I do not want to download any file, and especially dll file from any random site. Do you know how I can fix that?

I have windows 8.1 64 bit and visual studio 2013 if that matters.

Solution 1:

The correct course of action here is, as you say, not to go downloading random dll files from all of the internet but instead work out just which Visual C++ Runtime your program is expecting and install that.

Chances are if it is Explorer that is complaining then it is because a new shell extension or related program is trying to work through it.

You can get the latest redistributables from this page:Latest Supported Visual C++ Downloads

Given that your error is for MSVCP110.dll I would try Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 Update 4 i.e the version that lists VC++ 11.0

You'll want to download the version that matches the bit-ness of your program that is throwing the error, which in this case if Explorer is running on 64-bit Windows will be 64-bit. Otherwise you can install the x86 version as well to be safe, the versions can co-exist happily.

Of course what this does not address what actually brought this error to light in the first place, only the course of action that should fix it.

I would hope that you either installed a program that failed to install its dependencies properly or you uninstalled a program that wrongly removed the dll file. Either way it is a poorly created installer or uninstall that is to blame.

Otherwise it could have been wrongly quarantined by an anti virus suite, some program could have moved or removed it for you or, hopefully not, it could possibly be a sign of a malware infection.

The first course of action though should be to reinstall the correct redistributable package which is the correct way to fix this in the first instance. If that does not fix the problem then you need to look deeper and find out why the file is missing.