While trying to deploy a feature today, I came up against this error;

Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {A8F03BE3-EDB7-4972-821F-AF6F8EA34884} failed due to the following error: 800703fa.

The only thing of note that happened prior to this was an attempt to deploy this same feature which failed as I’d named my elements files incorrectly!.

Having fixed this and then attempting to deploy the feature again, this error presents itself.

The only thing I found to fix this (thankfully) was to reset IIS.