1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPCOM 2. Part of your Firefox installation is corrupt and Firefox won't work - needs re-installation to fix the corruption.

Given that Firefox could not load XPCOM, I tired to follow Forum instructions which said to completely uninstall Firefox, and then reinstall. Curiously, I was not able to uninstall Firefox, either through the Control Panel or CCleaner. Using the Control Panel, Windows would ask for permission to proceed with the uninstall and then nothing would happen.

What would prevent this? What would I do if I really wanted Firefox uninstalled? I ended up downloading the current version and installing it. Firefox now works. Problem solved for now. I am still left wondering why I could not uninstall it.

Thanks very much for your time and consideration.

My system has become troubled by this as well. I uninstalled with Iobit (beware sales pitches), got the roaming Mozilla folder, but didn't think to delete folders in both 32/64 bit program folders.

Firefox and some other software (Chrome, [installation routines]) won't load, starting with error: NETAPI32.dll is missing. ...reinstall, followed by a XPCOM won't load error.

I now, additionally have other missing *.dll errors, that may relate to the extra Iobit flurry of attention.

Any thoughts~? I will go ahead and un/re-install with folder deletion attention.

Did full uninstall for Firefox and Dragon. Brought Dragon back first, and it still wouldn't load. I'm nearly ready to blame the hard drive.

Windows uninstall also seems to be unresponsive on command to uninstall Firefox and some other software. Seems like that is deeper than a Firefox settings issue.