Obscure Solutions

The error looks something like:

program.exe – Bad Image
The application or DLL C::\WINDOWS\system32\hakumano.dll is not a valid Windows Image

The error message pops up while the computer is booting into windows and every single time you try to open an application. Every. Single. Time.

You click “OK” whenever it comes and continue about your business. The error doesn’t seem to cause any issues it is just annoying that it pops up all the time.

I came across this problem after I removed some malware from a customer’s computer. In this particular case, I used the free version of MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. MalwareBytes successfully removed all of the malware but left a registry entry was left over that caused windows to attempt to load hakumano.dll every time anything executable ran (including .com files).

Solution:

1. Click Start.
2. Choose Run.
3. Type regedit.exe and press enter.
4. Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion\windows]
5. Right-click AppInit_DLLs and choose Modify.
6. Delete anything in the Value Data field and click OK.
7. Verify you can run a program without generating the error message.
8. Close the Registry Editor. Problem solved.

Alternate Solution (found at techsupportforum.com):

Launch Notepad, (Start > Run, type in: notepad) copy and paste the text in blue below in it:(don’t forget to copy and paste REGEDIT4)

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion\windows]
“AppInit_DLLs”=””

Save this as fix.reg and change the “Save as type” to “All Files” and place it on your desktop. It should look like A REG FILE.

Double-click on it and when it asks you if you want to merge the contents to the registry, click “Yes” or “OK”. You should receive a message that it was successful. You may delete the file afterward.