Majority of Windows users face missing .dll file errors every now and then, but missing detoured.dll takes the prize for being the most annoying of them all. Unlike other missing .dll errors this will popup with message "The program can't start because the detoured.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." everytime an .exe file is launched on your computer either manually by the user or via autostart.

On the computer I diagnosed this, the error was being flashed 7-10 times on every boot and one needs to close each prompt, on further digging I found detoured.dll is infact part of an Microsoft Research technology named "Detours" which allowed hooks into every application launched on Windows OS (scary!!!). Having such a dll on a computer without any specific use-case was not acceptable so I devoted time to get rid of this error without the need to re-install this dll in my System folder.

For some unknown and strange reasons my "Windows 7" installation stopped recognizing my DVD drive and "Windows Device Manager" showed an exclamation icon next to the DVD/CD-ROM drive, on further opening the device properties page the error shown is :

"Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)"

The error signifies that an registry error has occurred with the device in question, you can find a working solution as demonstrated below.

Here are two simple methods to get rid of annoying Windows XP balloon popup's :