lmhosts.sam is considered a type of Dynamic Link Library (DLL) file. Dynamic Link Library files, like lmhosts.sam, are essentially a "guide book" that stores information and instructions for executable (EXE) files - like appidpolicyconverter.exe - to follow. These files were created so that multiple programs (eg. Microsoft Office Access 2010) could share the same lmhosts.sam file, saving valuable memory allocation, therefore making your computer run more efficiently.
Unfortunately, what makes DLL files so convenient and efficient, also makes them extremely vulnerable to problems. If something happens to a shared SAM file, either it goes missing or gets corrupted in some way, it can generate a "runtime" error message. Runtime is pretty self-explanatory; it means that these errors are triggered when lmhosts.sam is attempted to be loaded either when Microsoft Office Access 2010 is starting up, or in some cases already running. Some of the most common lmhosts.sam errors include:
- Access Violation at address - lmhosts.sam.
- lmhosts.sam could not be found.
- Cannot find C:\Windows\Temp\527D94AF-D053-4381-B105-0D815D53791E\amd64_microsoft-windows-lmhsvc_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.16299.371_none_602935ae5b3a5254\lmhosts.sam.
- Cannot register lmhosts.sam.
- Cannot start Microsoft Office Access 2010. A required component is missing: lmhosts.sam. Please install Microsoft Office Access 2010 again.
- Failed to load lmhosts.sam.
- The application has failed to start because lmhosts.sam was not found.
- The file lmhosts.sam is missing or corrupt.
- This application failed to start because lmhosts.sam was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.
Your lmhosts.sam file could be missing due to accidental deletion, uninstalled as a shared file of another program (shared with Microsoft Office Access 2010), or deleted by a malware infection. Furthermore, lmhosts.sam file corruption could be caused from a power outage when loading Microsoft Office Access 2010, system crash while loading lmhosts.sam, bad sectors on your storage media (usually your primary hard drive), or quite commonly, a malware infection. Thus, it's critical to make sure your anti-virus is kept up-to-date and scanning regularly.