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When booting up, the user gets a message saying: "Unable to register the Control Panel." Looking in the Control Panel nothing looks abnormal. Clicking ok, the message disappears and Windows 95 runs fine. All the applications run fine.

The probable cause is a corrupted .CPL file, or a file with the .CPL extension that is not actually a Control Panel applet. Use the command Find Files or Folders from the Start menu to find all the files with the extension .CPL that are in or below the Windows 95 directory. Right-click on each file and select "Open with Control Panel." If the item opens successfully, close it and go on to the next item. Chances are good you’ll find one that fails to load is the culprit. Change that file’s extension or move it to another directory and reboot the computer. You should not get the error message again. If you do, follow the same procedures to check for other corrupted .CPL files. You may find that the file is from some program that is not Windows 95 related and to repair the file will require re-installing that software.

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