That "/opt" is a new one on me, but if it is an optimizer then there is no reason at all to suspect it would cure a problem. It would only mean that it reconstructs your registry in order to put the most used parts at the front to speed thing up. The file rundll32.exe is a legitimate Windows file so don't delete it. The other two are obviously NView. If you search Google there are several hits for NView, such as this one that explains what it is: http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=feature_nview My general feeling is that it would be worth uninstalling NView, especially if it you don't know about it or use it. If there is no obvious uninstall then look in Control Panel/Add-Remove to see if there is an entry there. To return to Windows from DOS you type "exit" without the quotes (then hit Return key). The /? after a command name is just simply typed in DOS (then hit Return key) and works whether you "shut down to DOS" or use the "Windows DOS Prompt". Are you saying you can't shut down to DOS because of unchecking things in msconfig? Lost your drift on this part, not sure when it happened. If all else fails I am still inclined to suspect RAM but I realise that you might not feel like rushing out to buy a new stick unless it is certain. Is the whole 512M on one stick? Derek PS. Sorry for delayed reply. I live in UK and I usually come on around this time.

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Hello Derek. Thank you for coming back. I stay in Singapore. There is 8 hours time difference between UK and Singapore. It¡¯s a public holiday here today known as Visak day. From the website you gave, I have figured out that one of the functions the program ¡°NVIEW¡± does is multi display tasks and I don¡¯t think I need this program. But could this be one of the elements in the driver of my video card (Inno3D Geforxce2 4 x AGP) since I cannot find NVIEW in the Add/Remove list? If this program is incorporated in the video card driver, maybe I should suspect the RAM card rather than the program, as you have inclined to suggest. My RAM card is one piece 512M. I have ever used Norton Utilities to run diagnosis for my system hardware and it indicated that there was problem with my RAM although Norton Utilities is said to be able to diagnose RAM of up to only 256M (See my related subject on: http://www.computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/141925.html ) Another symptom, though not so often, is the blackout of the screen in the middle of using the pc leaving only a row of vertical green lines (looks like bar codes about 1cm in height) occupying the upper portion of the screen. I still cannot go to DOS mode from Start/Shutdown/Start in MS-DOS mode even I have unchecked all the programs on the list (except ScanRegistry). To exit DOS and get back to windows, I typed ¡°exit¡± after ¡°C:\>¡± ( Is this correct?) It didn¡¯t go back to windows but it went to the next line of ¡°C:\>¡± At last I pressed Ctrl/Alt/Delete to restart:) Best regards Henry

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All I know about NVIEW is what I saw in Google. There are other websites that might throw some light on it if you look around. So I've no idea whether or not it's part of your video card driver. As you probably appreciate by now there are a whole lot of things that can cause this problem, so they can often only be diagnosed by a process of elimination, which is difficult. It's not even easy to say if it's hardware or software, even the power supply could be the culprit. Does this only happen when the computer has been running a while? If so check that all the fans are running (including the one in the power supply). Clean all the fans and case vents while you are there. Firewalls and Virus Checkers have been known to cause problems so it is worth preventing them from starting (when you are off-line) to see if it makes any difference. You mentioned Norton's Utilities. I had some poor experiences with an early version of this package. Crashguard actually "caused" crashes (others had this problem too) and System Doctor gave me "locked files" error messages in System File Checker. You mentioned green bars on the screen. One easy thing you could try (though I rather doubt it will help) is to go to the My Computer icon and right click it. Select Properties/Performance/Graphics. Move the hardware acceleration down one notch - ignore the remarks about mouse problems. With all your normal things ticked in msconfig it should shut down to MS-DOS just the way you suggested. No idea why this doesn't work, does it do nothing at all? Maybe there is something strange in the file dosstart.bat (in c:\windows). Mine only has a mouse line. When you go into DOS this way then all you should end up with the "c:\windows" prompt. All you then need to do is type "exit" without the quotes and Windows should restart. If, as it seemed you were saying, you are ending up in root C:\ then this is unusual. You could type cd windows (hit Return) which will put you in the Windows folder. Maybe the exit command will work then. Again it makes me wonder what is in dosstart.bat (you can view it as a text file in NotePad). I doubt any of this has anything to do with your main problem though. I'm happy to keep going on this but clearly I am running out of ideas. Nobody else has joined us so perhaps it would be worth reposting the problem to see if you can get some fresh ideas. Regards Derek

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Hello Derek, The problem(s)occur at any stage of operation. It even happens as soon as the windows startup. It seems unlikely that it being due to the fan, dust etc. The PC is new (¡®taylor¡¯ made only 1 month!) and the fan is running ok. The virus checker I use is Norton Antivirus and, in addition, there is Norton Utilities with which I have run diagnoses for a number of times. Green bars. This happened again just few minutes ago when I opened MS-Words. At the instance when I clicked the Words icon, the screen blackout leaving only a row of green bars at the upper portion of the screen, as mentioned before. The PC freeze and I had to restart the system. But I will try your suggestion later and after which I need to monitor for some time, as this problem does not appear often. I can¡¯t go to DOS mode from "Start/Shut Down/Restart in MS-DOS" method, it freeze. I can however go to DOS mode by pressing the Ctrl key during bootup. But after this I can¡¯t exit by typing ¡°exit¡± after the C:\> prompt and press enter (Take note that it¡¯s ¡°C:\>¡± if I exit to DOS mode this way, rather than ¡°C:\windows¡± prompt.The quote cannot be deleted. I tried the same procedures with the PC at my office today. It did go to ¡°C:\windows¡± prompt if I go to DOS mode using the former method and it went to ¡°C:\> prompt if I used the latter one). I cannot locate dosstart.bat file in windows folder. Could it be missing resulting in the problem? The file I could find related to dos and in notepad is only ¡°dosrep¡±. By the way I have downloaded the Simmester (in floppy disc). But when I tried to test my pc RAM, it was unable to boot from drive A in order to perform the test. I use the same tester to test the pc in my office,it function well. There must be something wrong with my pc where it cannot bootup from drive A - another problem!(the same thing, I cannot bootup the system with by bootup floppy disc when I tried this) I agree the problems may be caused by one or a number of hardware or software defects, or both. If the problems continue, I may as well format the pc. But in the meantime I will continue to meddle with it to see what would come out next. The problem of ¡°cannot close programs¡±, originally the topic of this discussions, appears to have been rectified and I have found I can close programs with the keys Ctrl/Alt/Delete more easily now. Probably after running scanreg/fix. Thank you for your help. You have spent much time here for a number of days, for which I greatly appreciate. You can continue to give advice on this page. But, as you suggest, it may also be wise if I repost the problems to see if there are more ideas. If I repost the problems, I hope to see you there again! Many thanks and best regards Henry

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The exit command only works after you have "shut down to DOS" and have previously been using Windows. In this context think of it as meaning "go back to Windows". I realise that you are unable to shut down to DOS of-course. When you go to DOS using the Ctrl key it goes straight there, so the exit command will simply exit you back to the DOS screen itself (so nothing will happen). Normally you would power off and then on again to get to Windows. You should still be able to shut down to dos even if there is no dosstart.bat file (just to be sure I deleted mine and it worked fine, including exit back to Windows). All I was concerned about is that there maybe some strange entry in it. If the file is not there that's fine. Glad to have tried to help, pity we didn't get far enough. As you say, try that hardware acceleration and if not repost. As an engineer in various fields I quite understand how difficult it can be to prove anything when a fault is intermittent. Maybe someone coming in cold to the problem might think of something we have missed. One parting shot, if you ever get this, or any other problem, before it says "Windows is starting" then it is almost certainly a hardware fault. Oh yes, I am intrigued by extra characters that seem to appear in your postings, such as: ....note that it¡¯s ¡°C:\>¡± if I.... Is this intentional or something to do with your problems? Good luck Derek

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Hello Derek, Another sympton that prompted me to suspect there could be a hardware problem is (though not everytime) when the pc freeze, there is a weak, high pitch, continuous sound from inside the computer case when I move the mouse or press a key. Do you have idea what is the cause? The "Take note that it's" are my own words to show you that the DOS prompt is C:\> and not C:\windows. I believe this is because I went to DOS mode dirctly from Ctrl key. I now learn that I cannot of course get back to windows by simply type in "exit" and press "enter" key if I go to DOS mode this way, as you explain. But I still cannot shut down to DOS from windows. Another problem is when I insert (I did it for a try) the startup floppy disc and restart the computer, the pc cannot "see" drive A. Instead of bootup from drive A, it goes straight to windows. This may be a problem to me when I want to format my hard disk to reinstall Windows. Thank you for all your advice these days. If I don't see you here, I hope I will see you after I repost the questions. Best regards Henry

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The boot sequence is normally set in BIOS, on mine it is in the "BIOS Features Setup" section and is set to A,C,SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface). How you get into BIOS varies with manufacturer - it may tell you on the boot screen somewhere. With mine you hold the Del key while booting. Some use F keys which you tap at specific times. I think some use Ctrl-Alt-Ins (together) and various other key combinations. If you have never been there it is a simple menu and you can opt to exit either after saving settings or without saving. Sometimes the PgUp and PgDn keys are used to make changes and the Esc to get out of it. Mine continues booting once you have done. Derek

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Hello Derek, I re-installed today the OS Wind 98 se (without formatting the hard disk)but the old problems are still there. On BIOS setting, I pressed Del key during startup to enter BIOS setup. In the Advance Setup section, I found the sequence: 1st boot device CD ROM, 2nd IDE, 3rd Floppy. How can I alter this. I tried to change to 1st Floppy, 2nd CD ROM, 3rd IDE to make it the same as yours but there is no way I can do the typing. Would you show the way. Best regards Henry

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I suspect it works in a similar way to mine. You don't actually type anything in, you just go to the entry and then you can change it to various options using the keyboard to select them. On mine you use the PgUp and PgDn keys so yours might well be the same. Sometimes a "how to do it" is printed somewhere on the page. If those keys don't do it perhaps it's arrow keys or + & - The usual boot sequence is: A (floppy), C (hard drive), D (CD-ROM). If you find the name of your BIOS manufacturer and search in Google you should be able to find more explicit advice. Derek

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.... the name of your BIOS manufacturer usually displays on the screen during boot. I rather doubt that your current settings are their normal default. Derek

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Hi Derek, I have managed to find the Manual for my mainboard which is Matsonic MS9047C+533. The boot sequence shown in the manual table under¡°AMIBIOS SETUP¨C DVANCE SETUP¡± is in the order C, A, D. For my pc, the boot sequence is D, C, A. I changed the setting in accordance with the manual, ie. C, A, D. But it still could not start my floppy Simmtester during bootup. I then changed the setting to A, C, D, the same as yours. This time the Simmtester worked. The result of the quick test showed there were 3 failures in 1 test loop. The system concluded the test as Failed. This make me believe stronger than before that the bunch of problems are caused from the RAM, one of the suggestions you have made. It should be a hardware problem since no other programs were running during the test in DOS mode. If this judgment is right, the next move is for me replace the RAM card. Maybe you wish to give your idea. Many thanks and best regards Henry

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The most usual and useful BIOS setting is A, C, D. They may default to D first so that you can use some bootable CD that was supplied with the machine. I would leave it as is unless you think you are ever likely to want to use a bootable CD. Newer OS's and laptops are moving towards bootable CD's rather than floppies. Yes, I agree, everything "seems" to point to RAM but unfortunately unless you try replacing it you will never know for certain. Since your test, presumably, didn't involve attempting to start Windows, it points almost certainly to a hardware fault in some shape or other. I suppose you don't know anyone who has a spare stick of RAM (needn't be 512M) so you can test the idea before you buy? Derek

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Hello Derek, After I re-installed Windows 98 se (without formatting as mentioned), I ran scanreg/fix again yesterday (it appeared to have cleared some erros) and I unchecked some of the applications in the startup list. So far I find the PC is more stable although there have still been error messages but at obviously very rare occassions (and I still cannot shutdown to DOS mode from windows). The situation is more tolerable now. I would leave the RAM problem to maybe two weeks later. By then, I hope, someone could lend me a RAM card for me to try it out.I learned a lot during the period especially from you. Thank you so much! You can still come to this page when you feel like to to find out the 'update' especially on the question of whether or not the RAM is the culprit.I will put it in if there is new discoveries related to this. You may ,at your wish, give ideas since I am not deleting this page. Best wishes Henry

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Regarding your inability to shut-down to DOS, I found this: MS 232915 Despite what they say I should think very hard about the implications of flashing BIOS with a download. I've read far too many reports about folk getting into dead trouble with this (worst cases requiring a new motherboard). Apart from anything else it must be "exactly" the right one. The MS Article does bring in the possibility of the video adapter coming into the equation, so there maybe some scope for looking in that area. On your general problem you could always try turning the hardware acceleration down a notch - it's harmless and sometimes helps. It's in: My Computer (right click) then Properties/Performance/Graphics. I'll keep an eye on this link. Derek

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... another thought prompted by that link (for your list of things to try). Go to Control Panel/Display, then Screensaver tab. In the energy saving area at the bottom, hit the Settings button. Set the monitor & HD to Never turn off. Having done this you could go the whole hog, type msconfig in the Run box then go to StartUp tab. Uncheck both entries for LoadPowerProfile (there are always two). Derek

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Hello Derek, I have tried your suggestions. I brought the hardware acceleration down as suggested and reboot. But it didn't work, so I continue to bring down further until it went to None.I also set the HD and monitor to never turn off. The problem of unable to shutdown to DOS still there. So happened I posted to cybertechhelp forum yesterday concerning the same topic and there are some responses. My reply today as follows: > Derek, the page address of the above discussion is: http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=108036#post108036 You may like to take a look of it. Sorry I cannot create a hyperlink to the address otherwise you can just click and link to the page. Best wishes Henry

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The reply message I supposed to quote did not appear in the earlier posting. I repost as below: Following Abremylin¡¯s suggestion , I can exit to DOS mode by typing ¡°Command¡± in the Start/Run. In order to identify the real problem that exists, I tried to follow the first method given in the webpage of Microsoft Product Support Services suggested by Gretap. This requires a ¡®trial and error¡¯ process on the Dosstart.bat file but I cannot find the file (I don¡¯t think it¡¯s in my PC folders). I proceeded to the second method: click start/find/type*.pif/enter/right clickExit to DOS.pif file/Properties/Program tab/Advance/select Specify a new MS-DOS Configuration check box/OK. It works! But any idea what¡¯s going on with the default ¡°Use Current MS DOS Configuratuion¡±? Another problem I have encountered is when I enter Microsoft Startup Manual in DOS mode, I can hardly select the menu (eg when I press the number 3 to go to safe mode or press the page down key, everything, including the time counter, stops running. I then have to restart ). My RAM card is 1 piece 512 MB. I will need to borrow a card to test out the machine to find out if my RAM is the cause for ¡°Fatal Exeption¡± messages etc. Henry

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Ah. Sorry, it seems I repeated myself on that hardware acceleration. I was hoping this may help those green lines on the screen you mentioned. I assume lowering the acceleration didn't help with the freeze-up situation either? The loadPowerProfile idea was a shot in the dark because if implications in the MS Link. Similiarly it left me with a feeling that graphics may have some bearing on it. I'm not too surprised that none of this affected the inability to shut down to DOS. I'm rather out of ideas on that problem. See how you get on with the RAM (although I now feel rather less confident because of what has happened since) RAM is definitely not the reason for your DOS shutdown problem. After that I'd repost something like "freeze-up's and no DOS shutdown" and get some fresh ideas on the subject. As a parting thought you could just simply load Windows in again as an overlay. This will not loose any of your own files. It normally works fine and at the worst you may have to reload the odd program and maybe do a little tidying up. Derek

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Hi Derek, The problem of green bars has not happened anymore so far ever since I last reinstalled the OS, re-ran scanreg/fix and unchecked some of the items in the startup list. Problems of freeze-up and fatal exception messages have obviously been reduced although they do appear sometimes. The problem which is there all the time, even after having carried out the above corrective measures, is that of unable to shutdown to DOS (another encounter, as I mentioned in my posting yesterday, is unable to select the menu on Microsoft Startup Manual in DOS mode). I will continue to explore on this topic and update, on this page, if there is new findings, so that you can view the update and provide your ideas. Best wishes Henry

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DOS Restart: Can I assume you tried replacing both the files mentioned in that MS article? Derek

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Not quite sure if you've tried this procedure exactly (it's worked for a several people): Can't restart in MS-DOS mode Using Windows Explorer Find the File "Exit To Dos" located in C:\Windows (a) highlight the file "Exit To Dos" (b) Go to Properties, selected the programs Tab (c) Select the advance Tab (d) Select Specify a New Dos (e) Shut Down and restart... Derek PS. The file "Exit To DOS" is actually a .pif file with a hidden extension. It's DOS name is exitto~1.pif (the command line is C:\WINDOWS\command.com)

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Hi Derek, I am posting this message from a friend's computer since I have another problem with my pc: It's always at DOS mode now and refuses to go to Windows no matter what methods I tried. What happened was, I did manage to shutdown to DOS yesterday using the 2nd method suggested in the MS article (I wanted to try the first method but as discussed earlier I did not have the Dosstart.bat file in my system). I assume the 2nd method as being in line with your suggestion, provided DOS.pif file and the Exit to DOS file are the same thing (I don't know). Anyway let me go to my new problem which may not be related to the selection of New DOS Configuration yesterday. My PC freeze again today. Then I decided to try Scanreg/restore (rather than Scanreg/fix)in DOS mode. I did this partly out of my curiouscity. I selected yesterday's date to restore. But after which the pc refused to return to Windows. I restarted. Again it went to DOS. I inserted the boot up disk and ran sys C. It didn't rectify the problem. I boot up under both "with cd-rom support" and "without cd-rom support", and when I ran with cd-rom support, I inserted my Wind 98se cd to run setup (For some reason it couldn't complete the setup). All the methods used did not solve the problem and the pc still go to dos mode. Then I managed to go to Safe mode and I unchecked what I selected yesterday ie. I unchecked the New DOS Configuration box and back to Current DOS Configuration box....But when I restarted, it still went to DOS mmode. Eventually I have to go to Safe mode again to shutdown the pc and look for help. Any idea what's happened. I think I need to make the pc to go back to noraml Windows first before I can continue with the topic of Exit to DOS again. Henry

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Ooer, sounds like it's getting very messy. As you probably know Safe Mode only loads minimal drivers, so in the normal way you would make sure there is not a driver problem. If you can get to Device Manager in Safe Mode it would be worth checking to make sure there are not any red or yellow marks there (denoting a problem). You probably already know that you get to Device Manager via Control Panel/System. One other idea. I've not tried it but many times I've seen it suggested that when you have problems reloading Windows you delete the file win.com (or better still, rename it for preservation). It's in c:\windows. See response #2 on this URL:- http://computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/85325.html It does sound like you might be heading for back-up, fdisk, & reformat - not helped by suspicions about the RAM. If the RAM is faulty it could be corrupting the registry. We'll put DOS restart on the back burner for now. Derek

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Hello Derek, My pc can operate in windows again. After spending hours of troubleshooting including startup using step-by step confirmation, I discovered that the Process Config Sys file and the Process Autoexec.bat file (on System Configuration Utility general page) were checked. I unchecked them and Windows can start again. But I don¡¯t know how they were checked, as I did not do anything on them before the problem happened. On the question of start DOS, I followed your method (Exit to DOS/select New MS DOS) and it works. The difference from the normal way is that this new one requires to restart the pc before exit to DOS, and restart to go back to Windows. But this is no more a problem since the machine is much more stable now although the problem of freeze up and fatal exception messages occur occasionally but they have been very much reduced. There seems to have no more problem of green bars so far. The discussion on reinstalling hard disk without formatting the hard disk is interesting but I cannot find the win.com file. What I have in my pc is a win.bak file. I think I should leave the topic aside for the time being and deal with the remaining problems sometime later since they are not as¡°irritating¡± as before. Many thanks for all your help. I hope to be able to get more advice from you in due course. Best wishes, Henry

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Aha, now that all sounds a lot better. Glad you found the answer to the Windows problem. As I am sure you know, neither autoexec.bat or config.sys are required for Windows, only DOS programs (like games). Without them you can still do faulting in DOS as normal too. There is only one thing that might be worth checking. Sometimes autoexec.bat has virus checker line (boot scan). If yours should have one you could put it back on, then go to the autoexec.bat tab and uncheck all other entries. Both autoexec.bat and config.sys can be viewed in NotePad. When any line is unchecked in msconfig they get renamed with a .tsh extension (the old .bat or .sys files being retained as place holders). Good luck Derek

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Hi Derek, I cannot find "boot scan" in the autoexec.bat tab. I believe this is norml. I try to view the autoexe.tsh and config.tsh files but I don't know what they mean. Any clue on how to interpret the content of a file or is there any website you know that gives ideas about all these. Many thanks Henry

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autoexec.bat does not "always" contain a bootscan. The bootscan is only put there by specific virus checkers, such as AVG and Norton. If there is not one don't worry about it (or double check with your virus scan supplier). If there is one then it would be sensible to let it back in (with only that line ticked in msconfig). If you have .tsh files it's because you have disabled some lines. In this instance when you go to msconfig and look at autoexec.bat and config.sys what your are "actually" looking at is autoexec.tsh and config.tsh (you might find msconfig an easier way to view them and you can also bring lines in and out readilly). Just the same, both should be readable in NotePad if you switch NotePad to "all files". You could copy and paste their contents on here if you like. I don't know all the answers on this but am happy have a look if you like. What I need by the sound of it is the .tsh versions. If you go to the .bat & .sys versions it will probably just contain a text along the lines "don't edit, these are just placeholders". Bear in mind that these two files are only for DOS stuff, so you don't really need to worry too much about them unless you use DOS programs - only when they cause problems. There are sometimes lines that allow the CD to be used when you are in DOS (often a necessity for DOS games). I don't know a website that discusses these files but they do vary quite a bit from machine to machine, depending on your DOS requirements and any DOS programs you have installed. Derek

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The machine is a little unstable today. There were a number of Fatal Exception OE and one Fatal Exception 06. Green bars occurred once yesterday. Other respects function as normal. A friend suggests that I should upgrade the OS to Windows XP since it is much more stable and my pc capacity is well above Windows XP's requirements. The content in my autoexec.tsh file as follows: @ECHO OFF SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP SET PROMPT=$p$g SET winbootdir=C:\WINDOWS SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND REM REM The following lines have been created by Windows. Do not modify them. REM C: CD C:\WINDOWS CALL C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM /WX That in my config.tsh (rather than config.sys.tsh) as follows: DOS=SINGLE DOS=HIGH,UMB Device=C:\WINDOWS\Himem.Sys But I can't interpret them :( Best wishes Henry

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Well, I can explain some of this. Autoexec: @ECHO OFF just stops things being repeated on the screen when you boot. SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP These just make two folders c:\tmp & c:\temp (c:\tmp is a tad unusual but it doesn't matter). SET PROMPT=$p$g just alters the appearance of the command prompt when you are in DOS. SET winbootdir=C:\WINDOWS SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND Sorry, not sure about these (the second line is setting a path to the DOS command prompt). A quick word about REM. When this is in front of a line it disregards the instrucion. It is often used when you want to temporarilly disable a line but keep the info for possible future use. You seem to have a couple of REM's on lines to themselves (though I accept it may just be the way they came up when you posted this). If that is the case they are harmless but pointless. C: CD C:\WINDOWS These seem to be switching to C: then changing the directory (folder) to C:\Windows. [CD means change directory] CALL C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM /WX Unsure about these. There is no anti-virus line so presumably your virus checker doesn't need one. If autoexec was completely disabled it wouldn't matter unless you run DOS programs. config: DOS=SINGLE Don't know. DOS=HIGH,UMB Device=C:\WINDOWS\Himem.Sys I can't remember all the details about these but do recall that they are necessary in order to run most DOS games etc. Again, if config was left disabled it wouldn't matter a fig to Windows. Without these two files Windows makes it's own arrangements, so if you have them disabled it is probably for the best (saves them doing something they shouldn't). Neither file is referenced again after boot up by the way. I feel sure your problems are elsewhere, so maybe RAM problems cannot be excluded. However when RAM plays up it usually results in registry errors that keep recurring, not general instability. There could be some background task that is screwing things up, so temporarilly disabling things in msconfig Startup might prove something. Keep Scan Registry tho. This URL might be useful in this respect: MSCONFIG STARTUP ITEMS Yes XP is reckoned to be more stable, though your W98SE should be reasonable. I'm really unsure what is causing your problems. Sometimes it can just be poor ineraction between programs, perhaps a corrupt or wrong version .dll somewhere. Difficult to find, that's why some folk resort to reloading Windows on top which sometimes helps. Maybe you should repost and get some new ideas on the instability and green bars. Derek

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.... a bit more. As I've probably already said or implied, green lines are usually due to graphics problems. It wouldn't go amiss to download the latest video drivers for your card. Whether this might have any bearing on your general problems is anybody's guess but it's worth a try. Be heartened, sometimes these problems seem to just vanish on you, without you being very sure what it was you did to cure them. I hope you are that lucky.... Derek

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... I suppose you ought to check this out too (though 512M of RAM ought to be OK): MS Q253912 Derek

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Helllo Derek, I have copied your explanations about the contents in the notepads and have saved it for future references. Thank you for spending much of your time. Also the web links are interesting. I¡¯ll take sometime to explore more. Today, I have other discoveries. I decided to reinstall the OS Wind 98 as per one of your suggestions (without formatting drive C). Before I started, I disabled Norton Antivirus. But when setup reached the stage ¡°Setting up hardware and finalizing settings¡±, it discontinued. It said ¡°Setup (CAB) File Error¡± ¡°Setup cannot copy your Windows 98CD¡­.Read the CAB Errors section of the setup.txt file. This files is in the Windows 98 directory of your Windows 98 CD¡±. Thinking of aborting the setup, I restarted the PC. But after boot up, instead of opening Windows, it went to the same screen ¡°Setting up hardware¡­¡± Then the same error message appeared. I restarted a few times, still it refused to go to Windows. I ran scanreg/fix and scandisk. Scandisk said it found lost data. I remembered of being told that Norton Antivus could cause problems during setup. I went to safe mode and uninstalled Norton Anti virus. I restarted. On the same screen (¡°Setting up hardware¡­), it said setup could not find a file on the specified path. The error said ¡°setup could not finish opening a file on your destination disk¡±. The file details given was: Source file: ¡±C\windows\system\precopy\update.sys¡± Destination file: ¡±c:\windows\system32\drevers\update.sys=update.sys¡±. Almost giving up, I remember scanreg/restore. I proceeded to scanreg/restore and selected the date of yesterday for the restoration, Windows was opened! But one thing abnormal was the ¡°Norton Protected Recycle Bin¡± (the Recycle Bin changed name itself after I installed Norton System the last time) had the icon changed to a standard file icon and was no longer a bin icon. When I restarted, there was a long message in DOS mode stating that it could not find a device file that may be needed to run Windows or a Windows application¡­.The Windows registry or system .INI file refers to this device file, but the device file no longer exists¡­.and it said if you still want to use the application associated with this device file, try reinstalling that application to replace the missing file. C:\progra1\norton2\norton1\savrtpel.vxd. There were also symtdi.vxd and cshook.vxd on the list. I guessed I need to reinstall Norton in order to get rid of these messages. I tried to reinstall the same Norton Antivirus software but the pc refused to install saying the application already existed. Apparently some of the Norton components must have not been uninstalled. But I could not find any more Norton item under Add/Remove. Fortunately, I have an older version of Norton software and I had it installed. After this installation, I restarted and it went to the screen ¡°setting up hardware¡­.¡± again. But this time, it continued the Windows installation, from where it discontinued, till the completion. Everything is back to normal! The PC has so far been running smoothly after the reinstallation. If it continues to work steadily for the next couple of days, I can almost be certain that the Norton Antivirus was one of the causes, or may be the main cause, of the various problems. My next question is how to locate the hidden Norton components which were ¡°missed out¡± during the uninstallation. I think only having these components uninstalled can I reinstall the latest version of Norton Antivirus. Maybe you would like to make your comments. Thanks. Best wishes Henry

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Wow, looks like you had one of those close encounters of the third kind and came up smelling of roses (or at least daisies) LOL. Well I suppose I should have warned you that there are often a few niggles to sort out when you reload Windows over the top. The only safe way is to reformat but then you have to backup everything and make sure you have all your drivers to hand (video, modem, sound etc). Messy and time consuming if you have a lot of programs and/or tweaks. If you feel you may have fragments of Norton kicking around I would suggest this: Firstly you "could" search the registry for Norton entries (regedit from Run box then Edit/Find) BUT this is not valid if you have other Norton facilities such as anti-virus. What might be better, at least as a first step, is to download this freebie (see bottom of page): jv16 Power Tools I have had (and still have) various registry checkers but I do regard that feature of this package as the tops. It removes problem entries but is not "cavalier" with your registry. It's up to you how technical you want to be with it, but if you just open the first page of the Registry Tool it is unbelievably simple and safe. You just look for the software, or its supplier, then uncheck to clear old registry entries. It has never let me down but everything removed is saved so you can pop it back if you get it wrong. OK, but that doesn't remove any files that have been left behind. Sadly that is much more difficult. I usually note the date/time that the folder was created for any program I install. Often this can lead me to spare files left after uninstall (by searching for date and looking for time co-incidence). If you didn't do this with Norton, few folk do, then it's probably best to leave well alone. I have seen many machines wrecked on computing.net due to files being removed that turned out to be crucial. Get rid of the registry entries and most progs will re-install. They will either replace or ignore files that are already there. One quick word about Norton Utilities. Be careful, they have been known to produce more problems than they cure. For example, Crashguard often "causes" crashes (I'm not joking) and System Doctor causes lock-ups. My advice would be to not even install Crashguard and only use System Doctor on demand - don't just leave it running. I've nothing against Norton System Check, though in the main it often finds little much more than the odd shortcut with a wrong target. Maybe Norton has been contributing to your problems - I didn't think of that one. Quick aside, I was in Singapore for 18 months, around the time Noah was building his ark LOL. Can still remember Changi prison (I wasn't an inmate) and various other places on the Malayan peninsular. Had some weeks at Penang island, before it was a tourist attraction. Things that quickly come to mind:- Tiger Balm Gardens The Snake Temple Derek

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Hello Derek, From your message, I could some how guess that you visited Singapore decades ago. Tiger Balm Garden is still there but it is no longer ¡°original¡± after its renovation some10 years ago. The management tried to make it ¡°high tech¡± and has added sounds and lighting effects around the statues. But I still like the ¡°old version¡±. The garden is commonly called Haw Paw Villa nowadays. There are other attractions such as Sentosa Island, Birds Park, Night Safari etc. Maybe you would think of revisiting Singapore, one day! Turning to my PC, I haven¡¯t downloaded jv16 but will try it out later. I have visited the jv web including the forum section. One or two of the discussions are very close to my current topic. Before I do anything on this, I consider to first uninstall the existing Norton Antivirus (which I installed yesterday) and then delete the fragments of all Norton applications (old and new) from the registry. This way, I ensure that all the fragments from the Norton applications I earlier installed are deleted together without having to concern if any useful Norton files or registry are accidentally deleted during the process. After which I will then reinstall Norton Antivirus. I am not sure if this is feasible, or there is a better way. But I am more concerned where to find these fragments. Shall I go to Start/Find first and type Norton and delete all the related files, and then continue to run regedit, then Edit/Find, as you have suggested? What shall I type to find? Norton? Symantec? Or both? We have discussed quit a bit about ¡°registry¡± and I have even carried out scanreg etc. But honestly, I don¡¯t really know what is registry. If it is convenient to you, would you explain briefly what is¡°registry¡± and the differences in meaning between ¡°registry¡± and ¡°file¡±? Sorry for my ignorance. I am also green of their abbreviations. But don¡¯t bother if you have to take too much time on this. Best wishes Henry

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Hi Very small simple programs don't invoke the registry at all. These are often just single .exe files that you simply delete when you have had enough. Everything else, and definitely all of those that appear in Control Panel/Add-Remove, do involve the registry. In a nutshell the registry is two large files (system.dat & user.dat) that have a controlling function, co-ordinating the whole system. It notes the location of certain program files and often stores program settings, together with registration data (if any). This is why it can lead to complications if you just pick files off rather than running a proper uninstall. Just deleting files can leave the registry thinking files are still there, which at the worst can cause crashes. Sadly even when programs are properly uninstalled, some files and registry entries can remain (poor programming or an assumption that you might want to put the program back again). As far as Symantec/Norton is concerned you can search for both "files" and "redundant registry entries" as long as you have no Symantec/Norton programs installed. Clearly if you have any Symantec/Norton program installed you will have difficulties deciding what you must keep and what can go. Perhaps surprisingly, the registry is often easier to clear out than files. You can run jv16 or similar (safest) or if you feel up to it you can go into the registry itself. To get there you type regedit in the Run box and you will get a screen which is similar in principle to Windows Explorer. You can use Edit/Find to locate whatever you wish, but the hard bit is deciding whether you just delete an entry or a complete branch. Assuming you have no Symantec/Norton stuff installed then you can delete complete branches that "start" with either of those names. I should mention that there can be serious problems if you delete or change the wrong thing in the registry. It is possible to Export the whole registry before you start (you do it from the My Computer entry at the top). If you delete the wrong thing you can then Import the original copy back again. Just for information, you can also export individual branches too. Far safer though to use something like jv16 for this, as I've said. However, it's quite OK to take a peek just out of interest. If you don't change anything then there can obviously be no backfire. As for removing Symantic/Norton "files or folders", as you rightly say, you can look for them using Start/Find. Unfortunately there could Symantec/Norton files which use neither name in their title. Take a look in c:\windows\system and you will see many .dll files (think of them as sub-routines to programs) with all manner of strange names. Whatever, it is always best to right click a file and look in it's Properties before you delete it. Often the program manufacture's name is given in the Version tab. If in doubt then don't delete, the space saved might not be worth the hassle. Alternatively put them in the bin and don't clear it until you are sure everything is fine. If you plan re-installing a program it is even less important to remove every file. Sounds like I wouldn't recognise Singapore. I've been tempted to visit but I'm not too keen on the heat - took me a month to get used to it when I was a youngster. Regards Derek

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Hi DereK, Thank you for your valuable advice, from explaining the meaning of registry, to the technique of deleting a program. I will try these out in the next one or two days as I am at the moment preoccupied with other works. I shall update the results in due course. My intention is to uninstall the current (older version) Norton Antivirus, clear the "remnants" of the other Norton programs (later version) which I had earlier uninstalled, so that I could install this latter one again. As I mentioned earlier the machine refused to accept the installation saying the Norton programs already existed, despite the fact that I had uninstalled them from the Add/Remove function. Yes, Singapore is hot. Even the local residents feel uncomfortable about the climate. Lately we have been hit by the epidemic of SARS and visitors have much been reduced although the peak is said to have been over. No one can tell how long this will last.... Henry

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Fine, will keep an eye on this thread. Derek

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I used jv16 to delete the unwanted Symantec/Norton files and have the later version of the Norton AntiVirus installed. Before I used jv16, I uninstalled the old NAV, ran ~{!0~}Start/Find~{!1~} Symantec as well as Norton and deleted the files that were left over. Then I proceed to run ~{!0~}Regedit~{!1~}, from there I found some more related files and I exported them and then deleted them from the list. But there were many more files hidden in different folders. To be safe, I used jv16 to manage this operation. It is indeed easy to use. I believe all the unwanted Symantec files have been removed from the list. The new NAV was installed smoothly. The only drawback was when I ran Norton live update after the installation. The updating process discontinued and showed the following message: The following file cannot be updated by Norton Antiviru.... Therefore update was not completed: File: C:\PROGRA~~1\NORTON~~1\Cfgwiz.ex^ 300112 Bytes 8/16/2001 18:15:12 v8.0.0.58. If the above file comes with the NAV program, why is it missing? What caused it to be left out during the installation? I have yet to observe the stability of the machine. But I am now reluctant to re-install Norton Utilities or Norton System Works. Best regards Henry

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Hi there. I'm clutching straws a bit on that Update problem. Have you tried again since, just in case there was some web problem or other? If it is a paid up version then maybe Norton can help on this problem. The file cfgwiz.exe is actually part of the W98SE install and I don't think it ever gets updated. This means it is quite safe to restore with System File Checker. No promises, but it might be worth a go. You just type sfc in the Run box then use the extract feature. It goes in c:\windows\system (although sfc usually knows where files should go). It offers to save the old one - always a sensible thing to do I reckon. Since I've mentioned sfc you ought to read this (just in case you decide to run the scan for corrupted files - it can get it wrong). http://www.computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/110121.html I did a fair bit of work on this, but make sure you read WhitPhil's additions too (he's a guy I respect). I don't think Norton Utilities or System Works will cause any problems if you don't have CrashGuard running. I also think it is a good idea to arrange that Norton System Doctor only comes up on demand (rather than running in the background). Just so that you get a balanced view, someone recently posted along the lines that he couldn't understand why folk were against NSW & NU. He went on to say that he had used them fine for 3 years. I've got to admit my versions are very old so maybe they've improved by now. Derek

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Thank you Derek. After I ran incomplete live update yesterday, on the NAV main screen there was an exclamation mark before the description ~{!0~}Virus Definitions~{!1~}, and the date of the last update shown on the screen was a very old date (I did not take record and can~{!/~}t remember exactly the date it displayed.But it was a very old date). But today, NAV appears to have updated automatically.The date it displayed is today~{!/~}s date and the exclamation mark has turned to a green colour tick mark! Everything seems to have back to normal. But am I right to assume that the problem has not actually been resolved since I have not done any repair work and the corrupted file still exists (or the missing file is still missing)? I have tried to explore more about the use of sfc. But a few things I wish to clarify. Is ~{!0~}Cfgwiz.ex~{!1~} the file name to be typed into the ~{!0~}Specify the system file you would like to restore~{!1~} box? After I have typed it and clicked the ~{!0~}Start~{!1~} button, I come to the ~{!0~}Extract file~{!1~} page. When I click the pull down list at the ~{!0~}Restore from~{!1~} box, there is only one selection ~{!0~}C:\WINDOWS\System\Precopy~{!1~}. Is this the location from there I can extract the file, or should I insert my W98 se disk and extract the file from the disk? Then in the ~{!0~}Save file in~{!1~} box, I type ~{!0~}c:\windows\system~{!1~}. Is this correct? I am sorry this is the first time I use sfc. I hope to do it correctly and not to cause other complications. Thank you for your patience. Best regards Henry

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Perhaps you shouldn't worry too much about lurking files if NAV Updates are now working. I've had several faults that have vanished without me having the faintest idea why. Presumably I did "something" but goodness knows what. However, assuming you are interested: Firstly I appear to have got my wires crossed on that cfgwiz file. I no longer use NAV and can't remember if that uses one (you did mention a Norton folder though). What I was referring to was actually cfgwiz32.exe which is indeed an original Windows file. There is also cfgwiz.dll which is made when Windows first installs. Both of these are in c:\windows\system and can be restored from the W98 CD using sfc. Sorry about the mix-up, trust I've now cleared it up. Cfgwiz.ex~ is a strange filename. I suppose Norton might use it but more usually it would be some temporary version of cfgwiz.exe. There is certainly no cfgwiz.exe or cfgwiz.ex~ on the Windows CD, so if you had trouble extracting these I am no longer surprised. It could be worth using "Find/Files or Folders" and search for "cfgwiz" (just to see what is on your system). It should find them all. It might also be worth running sfc scan just to see if any cfgwiz file shows up as corrupted. For future reference, all you normally do with sfc extract is type the name of the file in the box. You pop in the CD and direct it to d:\win98 (assuming your CD drive is D). Next time it will probably show d:\win98 in the drop down box. Mostly it will offer the correct "save in" folder if it's a genuine file. If not you type c:\windows\system (or whatever) or use the Browse button. You can direct it to wherever you like of-course. Sometimes I have directed a file to a spare folder just to see if I like the size and version, before I run sfc again and put it in it's rightful place. Incidentally, with normal (non-sfc) file copying you cannot copy a file that is "in use" unless you shut down to DOS and do it there. Sfc get's around this by telling you to reboot afterwards. Those who are not too familiar with DOS would clearly like this feature. I can't comment on your "precopy" folder contents. Mine is just an empty and I've had no cause to use it. You could see what you have in there, out of interest. Hope this is some help and apologies again about my brain failure regarding the cfgwiz's. Derek

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PS. That guy that was praising Norton System Works & Norton Utilities did come back and agree about CrashGuard. He said it should just be called "Crash". I would avoid that feature.... Derek

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I went to Find Files/Folders "fgwiz~{!1~} and found files names as ~{!0~}cfgwiz32~{!1~}, ~{!0~}cfgwiz.dll~{!1~}, fgwiz.lgc~{!1~} and 3 files under the same file name ~{!0~}cfgwiz~{!1~}, one of which belongs to NAV. In SFC,I entered "cfgwiz" and I tried to extract from the so called "C:\WINDOWS\System\Precopy" but SFC said the file was not found. Out of curioucity I typed in only "C:\WINDOWS" or "C\PROGRAM" in the box to extract, Again, in each case, SFC said file was not found. It seems to me that files cannot be extracted from drive C and I wonder if I was doing the right thing. But I haven't tried to extract from Wind 98 CD and I will do it later, in 2 or 3 days time after my return from Malaysia. Am a bit tight up today and have to travel to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow on business trip. I shall update any finding. Again, thanks for all your advice. Best wishes Henry

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Aha, I remember KL railway station very well. I used it for my trip to Penang. Can you believe it was steam then? Err...yes, you normally use sfc to extract from your W98 CD to the HD. This is because folk are mostly trying to replace those files on the HD with new copies from the CD (this assumes that the ones on the HD may have somehow corrupted during their use by programs). Make sure you read and understand that link I gave you in #45 before you use sfc - just to be on the safe side. The only time I go from HD to HD is because I have copied the W98 .cab files onto the hard disk for convenience. Well, not quite true, I have sometimes done the same with IE because I have the download for that on my HD too. Maybe you should go to Windows Explorer (or My Computer C:) then move through to "Windows/System/Precopy" just to see what, if anything, you have in that folder. Like I said, mine is empty. If yours is too then that would account for sfc not finding anything there. Enjoy your trip. Derek

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Thank you Derek! I went to ~{!0~}precopy~{!1~}. There are 2 folders: Precopy 1 and Precopy 2. Precopy 1 consists of 73 files. They are mainly dll, bin, csb files. And there is a ~{!0~}cfgwiz32~{!1~} file. In Precopy 2 there are 361 files most of them are Notepads. I cannot find ~{!0~}cfgwiz~{!1~}. I believe we can use SFC to extract files belong to any programs by inserting their installation disks. My difficulty is, when SFC displays a file name, I cannot tell which program the file belongs to. I ran "Scan for Altered Files". It found 3 files that might have been corrupted. I chose to back up the files but without extracting from CD. For one of them I inserted Wind 98 CD to see if I could extract but it said file couldn~{!/~}t be found. The process continued and completed without repair or extract. I am not sure what I should have done to be the most optimum. The machine appears to be running more steadily after the various remedial measures we have discussed. There has been no occurrence of ~{!0~}Fatal Exception~{!1~} error messages or ~{!0~}green bars~{!1~} for the last 1 or 2 weeks.I am not sure now if I should still suspect the RAM card. Anyway thank you for all your help. Yes, the train to KL used to run by steam as you experienced. Then they ran with diesel. Now they run electrical. It must be very long ago when you took the steam-run train. KL is now very congested and traffic jams are common. Now they have ~{!0~}light-rail-trains~{!1~} running within the city. Best wishes, Henry

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Hi Yes, there is no reason why sfc shouldn't be used for extracting files from any location (CD or HD) or for any progam. As you say though, it does require you to know which program a file belongs to. Sometimes right clicking the file and selecting Properties gives you a clue. What were the three files names that sfc reported? There's just a chance I may recognise one or more of them. Be careful with versions though. It is usually best to either keep to the same file version or go to a higher one. Only on rare ocassions is there some advantage in going to an earlier version. You can always extract a file from sfc to some spare folder, just to see what version you get, then compare it with the file it would normally be replacing. I know nothing about the contents of Precopy but maybe a Google search will reveal something - like I said, mine is empty. If I find anything about it I will let you know. What I did notice is that on the W98CD the files cfgwiz32.exe & cfgwiz.dll are both contained within the compressed file Precopy1.cab Happy to keep this link open as long as you wish. I won't ditch it unless it goes quiet for a couple of weeks. Yes, as you will have concluded from my remarks about steam trains to KL I am no teenager LOL. Good luck Derek

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I had a quick search on Google for Precopy. Seems as if Novell Netware might be implicated. This appears to be some sort of Network managing program. Is your machine networked? Mine isn't so perhaps that's why I have nothing in my Precopy folder. As an aside, when you are searching with Google for computer stuff, don't forget to also try the "Groups" option. Sometimes this uncovers stuff that would otherwise be missed. Derek

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Dear Derek, I recorded only one file name when sfc found it but I have misplaced the paper on which I wrote the file name. I re-scanned sfc in a hope that it would show the file name again but sfc said it completed scanning, without pointing out any file this time. But I remember there was one "dll" file during the first scan. Google is absolutely right. My pc is networked. Another pc is used by my daughter who used the other pc for her study. My pc has more problems than hers. Hers is lower speed but is running on Windows XP. We share a modem through a wireless router. I did not mentioned it earlier as I did not want to make the discussion too complicated or bring up something irrelevant. But it seems everything is linked to one another and it's better to give full picture! :)) Regards Henry

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Strange that sfc didn't find the same files corrupted next time round - it normally does. Usually the only time it doesn't is if you hit the button that says something like "Update in verification table". If you do this it means that you want to accept this file(s) as found, so it will no longer report it/them. As for Networks well I just won't comment. I've never been networked. I removed all that guff way back so that it minimised my chances of either getting hacked or the unwanted facility causing me problems. Without doubt Networks are my weakest point, so anything specific to them is best posted on computing.net Sounds like your machine is behaving itself a bit better these days, isn't it? Regards Derek

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Hi! Actually I can't remember whether there was an "update in varification table" button that I had selected without knowing what it actually meant. Perhaps I should have proceeded to run extract files to extract the affected files from installation disk? I have mine and my daughter's PCs networked since we want to share 1 modem (1 telephone line) with 2 PCs operate from different rooms. Sharing the modem is the main reason for the networking and we do not make use of the network facility fully although I am sure there are many other functions network can perform. Yes, my PC appears to be more stable so far although there are still undesired occurrences onece in a while, but not as irritating as before. Today when I switched on the machine, there was no bootup. Nothing was one the screen. I pressed the restart button to restart, bootup then started. This ever happened before but I did not posted this problem since the PC restarts anyway when I press the restart button. But does it imply anything such as hardware problems? I must say I have learned tremendously from you and I am happy too to keep this link open. Many thanks. Please take note that sometimes I would not be able to respond to the discussions immediately. This is when I have to travel to countries in the region as required by my work and it would take a few days up to a week or so. Henry

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Three buttons arrive when sfc finds an alleged problem. I can't remember exactly what they say but it's something like this: IGNORE. Next time you run sfc it reports the same problem. UPDATE VERIFICATION TABLE. It no longer reports the file(s) in question but still reports any new file problems it finds. I'm not aware of any way to go back once you've said Update. EXTRACT/REPLACE FILE. You normally replace the file from the Windows CD. Like I said, watch file versions and review what I said in the link at #45. Always take the option to save the old file (it saves it in c:\windows\helpdesk\sfc) As regards your blank screen problem. If a computer fails to start before it says "Starting Windows" (or whatever the exact wording is) then it is almost a certainty that it's a hardware problem. Quite a good thing to do initially with this symptom is to remove the case and check the tightness of all cables and connectors inside, including RAM sticks and sub-boards. Unplugging them and plugging them in again can sometime clear oxide off the connectors. While you are there it's a good time to clean the case vents and fans. Obviously there can be a component fault or bad joint somewhere. Both RAM problems and Power Supply get a lot of reports on this website. Again, not too easy to pin down I'm afraid. It should make one bleep when it starts. Any more than one bleep indicates a problem. What each number of bleeps denotes depends on your BIOS. You should see the name & number of your BIOS when the computer is booting up normally. Regards Derek

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Hi,Maybe the next time when I run sfc, I need to be more observant. As for the blank screen problem, when it happens, it happens before it says Starting Windows. It happens even before any boot data appears. From the moment I press the main switch, the screen remains blank. No words on the screen and no beep sound. But when I press the re-start push button on the pc case, it always re-starts successfully. I agree there may be some hardware problem. I will look into this as suggested. After its last appearance at least 2 weeks ago, ~{!0~}green bars~{!1~} happened again today (once). I re-started the pc and it~{!/~}s been running OK since. I think this may be due to the same hardware problem, if any. Cheers Henry

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Yes, pretty well certain that this one is a hardware glich. While you are inside the box make sure you pull out your video card and poke it back in again firmly (if it's a "separate"). It's just that "green bars" and such like tend to make this a little more likely than other connections. Check them all though. Derek

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I have checked all connections, pulled out and poke back the video and RAM cards. I have yet to see if the problems of blank screen when startup or green bars are still there. I think I need a few days or weeks to monitor. The difficult part is such problems do not happen often therefore I cannot tell the immediate results. Henry

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Yes, too true. As an engineer in various fields I know only too well the problems of intermittent faults and the difficulty of deciding whether a fault has really gone or might rear it's ugly head again sometime. Keep me posted - will hold link. Derek

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OK. Thanks. It may take some time to tell what will happen next. Not only is the fault an intermittent type but I cannot be with the machine regularly. On some days I may spend 1 or 2 or more hours with it and on others I may have other things to occupy. But will, whenever I can, monitor and keep the topic posted. Henry

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Okey doke Derek

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So fau there has still been no green bars or blank screen when startup. But I have found a new problem with the Windows Media Player and I believe it is a software problem: When I want to play music from CD with Windows Media Player, an error message says, ~{!0~}The system cannot find the path specified (Error Code = 0 x 80070003, Condition = 115). When I want to play multimedia program from the Internet, an error message says, "Cannot play back the audio stream: the audio format is not supported (Error Code: 0 x 8004025c, Condition = 115). But I have no problem playing CD with the CD Player given in the system (Program/Accessories/Entertainment/CD Player). The WMP is of the version 9 series which I updated from MS website. I had uninstalled it to restored to the original version to see if the original one would work. But it still did not functioned. I have re-installed the 9 series again and it is still no good. Looks like some files have been missing or corrupted. I have run scanreg/fix. It~{!/~}s still the same. I tried to run sfc. It said file ~{!0~}uneng.exe~{!1~} (at location C:\ Windows) may be corrupted. I selected Restore file. At the Select Restore From, I typed D:\wind 98 and inserted my wind 98se installation disk. But there was no progress. I went to start/find and selected Find from Drive D to see if the file name is there. The file cannot be found in the disk. It appeared that the file does not belong to Windows 98. I could not proceed with the remaining scan unless I select Skip. But I opt not to do that. I don~{!/~}t know if the corrupted file is related to the WMP problem. It may just be coincident. Any suggestion how to fix the above problems: the problem of Windows Media Player and that of corrupted file where I cannot find which program it came from. Thanks Henry

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If you go to Google "Groups" and type in uneng.exe you will find a lot of stuff about it. You are not the first person to run into this problem and nothing seems very conclusive. There are lots of threads to look at I'm afraid. During searching I spotted that there is a virus around that infects .exe files over a long period and it seems it gets past virus checkers. Uneng.exe was mentioned in this respect. "It probably isn't your problem" but I think it would be worth checking before we go any further. You use Norton AV I gather. This is what they say about it: Marburg Virus Carry out the removal procedure given. I'm none too sure about your WMP problem but in any event I think it would be best to ensure that you haven't got this Marburg thing because that could cause all sorts of problems. Let me know how you get on. Derek

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Just realised that they ask you to make Rescue disks on another computer with Norton AV on it, which may not be convenient. If you made Rescue disks way back and they haven't been used since then I would have thought they would be fine. Make sure they are set to write inhibited before use. The other possibility is to download this: See 30 day eval Please bear in mind that you may not have this virus at all, it's just that I think you should make certain. Derek

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I have found that it's not just the file uneng.exe that was affected but the whole group of files. Countless number of files were shown when I ran sfc the following day. I tried to back-up, ignore etc but the new ones kept showing up. I spent about an hour handling this but only a small portion of the files had been tackled. I knew something else had gone wrong and it was impractical to continue checking the files. So I stopped. Before that I did not do anything significant exept I had run Spy-Bot Search and Destroy and removed the files which I believed to have been infected, in a hope that Windows Multimedia Player could be repaired. But I don't think this is the cause of numerous number of files being corrupted. Another problem is the blue screen Fatal Exception error messages appear once and again, more intensely than any other time is the past. This happens from the moment Windows opens (I press any key to continue as prompted), and half way when I use any programs as well as when connecting to the internet. I believe there is a hardware fault (especially the RAM card). So I think it is no point to continue meddling with the software aspect until I have the hardware problem fixed. But I need a couple of days before I have the time to do something about it. Maybe,in the mean time, you would like to give your comments and advice. Thanks. Henryhauw

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Well, like we said earlier, with general problems like blue screens, and mixed problems the only real way forward is by some sort of process of elimination. It was for this reason that I wanted to get the virus possibility (vague tho it probably is) right off our backs. The same goes for the possibility of the RAM being faulty, which has been mooted from time to time. I agree that we ought to be sure that the hardware is OK, or we could be fiddling around with software for ever, arguably making things worse. Somehow we need to get your computer a whole lot more stable before we worry ourselves about fixing WMP (which I suspect we will still have to do as a separate entity). See what you can sort out on the RAM front and we can take it from there. On the topic of sfc saying files are corrupted, I would be interesting to know if they are mainly .exe files (I'm still harping back on that virus that wrecks .exe's). Derek

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I did not complete sfc checking for reason I said earlier but there were some 15 .exe files. Just to name a few, uneng.exe, tuneup.exe, isuninst.exe, k2setup.exe, sndrec32.exe, krnl386.exe etc. Then it went to .dll files for which I stopped at 10th. To name a few, comctl32.dll, dibeng.dll, danim.dll mspbde40.dll etc. I believe there are a lot more .dll files and also many other types of files in the "queue". Any clue from the symtoms. Thanks and regards Henry

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I have downloaded Protector Plus 2000 (30 days evaluation) and have the hard disk scanned. No infected files were found. Henry

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Usually when you start getting corrupted files it is either a virus or the hard disk starting to fail. It looks like you've eliminated the virus idea. Have your run scandisk lately? If it starts showing errors then it points to HD problems. I would advocate unchecking "Automatically fix errors" (if checked). If it's set to fix them then you have a nice quiet life but get no early warning when your HD is about to fail. Better if you tell it to fix each error as they arise. I had a quick look at the selection of files you listed. They seem to be a mixed bag. The following are original Windows file (dated 23/4/99 if we are using the same W98SE version) which don't seem to ever get updated:- tuneup.exe sndrec32.exe krnl386.exe dibeng.dll mspdbe40.dll No harm replacing these using sfc. I would replace krnl386.exe straight away because this is a particularly important Windows file. Comctl32.dll (c:\windows\system) gets updated but you might be lucky and find a backup copy in c:\windows\sysbckup - in which case use this as replacement. For info, danim.dll is a DirectX file. See what scandisk reveals, particularly whether it has marked many unusable blocks. I assume your HD is not making any mechanical noises. Good luck Derek

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Hi! Here again. What happened was, after my last post, I decided to send my PC to be examined for any hardware defects by my technician friend who helped me in building this machine. The shop from which we bought the components from obliged and let us try using their new parts to replace whatever we suspected being defective(there was a verbal agreement of 6 months warrenty, anyway). First we replaced the RAM card. It was still the same, ie. blue screen with fatal exception error message. Then my friend suspected the circuit on the mother board related to the RAM. But the mother board of the same model was out of stock and we had to wait for a few days. I left the PC to him to follow up. Today, he asked me to collect the PC and said after changing the MB with new one, he still found error message and he suspected the problem was due to either corrupted files or virus, and he went ahead to format the hard disk and reinstalled the OS. But he left the new MB in my machine. He seems to be concluding the problem was software related. But I tried the following, which had failed before the replacement--(1)shut down to dos (2)run scandisk from Windows (3)memory test with Simmtester (although he said my RAM was dimm card and not simm card therefore the test would not be accurate)-- and they all passed my test except in one occasion there was a "programme illegal operation" error message when we tried to load a software from the CD-ROM drive. He then replaced the CD-ROM drive. Hence, there are two replacements: the mother board and the CD-ROM drive. On reaching home, I continued to install other softwares including Norton Antivirus. Unlike before, this time they were all installed smoothly. I hope the cause of various problems has been removed, at least for now, so that any problems in future ("touch wood"!)would be software related. I have been trying machine for a coulple of hours today. No single error has occured. Henry

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Well, that's great news. At least our gradual "home in" on hardware seems to have been correct. If I had to put money on it I would now suspect the HD was the problem all along, because of your recent spate of file corruptions. Maybe we should have tried scandisk a little earlier (wonderful thing hindsight). I'll keep this link open for a couple of weeks because it might be nice to hear that your machine is continuing it's good behaviour. Happy to send you my email addy if you wish. I don't publish on here any more because it gets picked up by spammers engines, resulting in junk mail. Derek

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Before I sent the machine for examnination, I did run scandisk with "Automatically fix errors" unchecked, in accordance with your suggestion. There was a message I copied as follows: The 'C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\office Recent' folder contain incorrect information about the file whose MS-DOS name is '|+ - + -~1.LNK'. The file or folders ....is either stored incorrectly on your disk or is incorrectly associated with '|+ - + -~1.LNK'. Scandisk repairs the error by storing the name in the correct format or by deleting the long name. If scandisk deletes the long name, you will still be able to access the file or folder by using the name '|+ - + -~1.LNK'. There was "Repair the error" or "Ignore" to be checked. I selected "Repair the error". But the problems were still there. I remember I ran Scanreg/fix but the errors were not fixed. I am happy to keep this link active and will post any new problem when arises. I may also post as new thread to see what others have to say. My e-mail address is "henryhauw@yahoo.com". Send me an e-mail so that your e-mail address is not opened to the "public". Thank you for all your helps and every instruction over the period. Henry

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