When I start windows 98se the windows 98 screen appears then I receive the black screen with flashing cursor in upper left corner as always, but below the cursor it reads: c:\>uwboot Bad command or file name What does this mean and how can I fix it? Thank You in advance

That's coming from autoexec.bat. Once windows loads you can go to start-run and type in sysedit. Then either remove that line in autoexec.bat or type REM (followed by a space) in front of it so it's not processed.

reinstall the operating system.

Rayman A bit extreme maybe, as well as looking in the autoexec.bat check the win.ini file look for a line that may read load=uwboot if its there dont delete it rem it out and reboot see if the meassage comes back. if windows does not load use a boot disk then type in this at the coomand prompt path=c:\windows\command then type edit autoexec.bat check for the line there if not there then type edit c:\windows\win.ini (i think thats the correct path) and check for it there remember though its better to rem lines than to delete easier to recover from a rem than a delete. this error message is common if you have done a incomplete unistall I have come across a simular error message when a printer is not unistalled completly and i have found the program concerned in the win.ini load=etc good luck

First Reply to DAVEINCAPS, I did remove the line as you said. This removed it from coming up and also removed a issue that I had on my desktop where the internet connect would appear after my system tray loaded (that was annoying). I noticed though on the black screen when windows starts that I now have three "3" of c:\> under each other as shown below. c:\> c:\> c:\> How do I get rid of these? Second Reply, RayMan... that's just a little extreme for this issue! Third Reply to beama, I guess I jumped the gun before you responded. But I do have a question for you. As you noted in your response... look for a line that may read load=uwboot in win.ini tab in msconfig. I did look in the win.ini tab and found that if you open up the + beside the windows folder there is what is labeled: load= (without the uwboot after the = mark) is this the way it should be, or do I need to do something with this since I am receiving the "3" c:\> on black startup screen (as noted above)? Thanks again for the replies

bottom. if you can cursor down below the last I like extreme, extreme works for me:-) I assumed it wasn't completing the boot sequence. apparently it can't find "uwboot". I did searches and found no reference to it anywhere. but anyway, the 3 C:\> are probably cartridge returns in the autoexec.bat file. they wouldn't show up as anything but blank lines at the line then that's where they are. They could also be blank lines inside the bat file as well.

Anytime you get a 'bad command or file name' it's coming from a dos command line attempt. For example if you enter some gibberish at the c:\> prompt and hit enter you'll get that response. And a batch file is just a way to run several commands or files without having to enter them individually at the prompt. It wouldn't have been in the system.ini or win.ini as the error message would have been different. The 'load=' line in win.ini is OK. Win 3.1 often loaded stuff there but 9x hardly uses it. As RayMan the extra prompts are probably carriage returns or ECHO lines. Although some files or commands seem to generate them automatically. You might want to post back the contents of your autoexec.bat and we'll see if we can edit out some of the unneeded stuff.