I've got a 4 year old Compaq Presario notebook that still runs fairly well. My concern is the error messages that I get when I turn it on. "The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\essaudio.sys" and "There is an error in your config.sys file on line 1" Everything seems to work fine in spite of these warnings, but I just want to make sure nothing serious is going on. I don't know what these messages mean - can anyone tell me or offer any advice? Thank you!

Well, I don't think it's serious and there is a possibility these errors would only show up if you use DOS (for games and the like). The file C:\essaudio.sys is obviously part of your audio system, which I assume is working correctly in Windows. You could reload your sound drivers (or update them) but it's not beyond possibility that the file config.sys is to blame for this error message too. So make up some spare folder and copy config.sys into it (it's straight off the C drive). Now rename this copy to config.txt and it will open in NotePad. Copy & Paste the contents of this file on here (just the first few lines if there's a lot) and we should be able to spot what the system is complaining about. Config.sys is not essential to Windows, only DOS, so that's why it's causing you no problems. D

Possibly essaudio.sys was deleted from your root directory. That's the error config.sys gives when a called file is missing. Go to START--FIND-FILES OR FOLDERS and enter essaudio.sys and see if it's there and if so, where.

Yep, good thinking DAVEINCAPS. We might have to decide whether that file (if missing) is worth restoring somehow, or whether we try to stop config.sys worrying about it. D

Yeah, if it's been that way for awhile the line is probably not needed.

Wow, thanks for the quick responses and the ideas! Here's what config.txt says: "DEVICE=C:\ESSAUDIO.SYS DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\CPQIDECD.SYS /D:IDECD001" And essaudio.sys was found in this folder: "C:\Windows\Options\Cabs" Do you guys think this is something I don't really need to worry about?

Try putting "a copy" of essaudio.sys (from the Cab folder) into the C: drive root. Let us know how you get on. We are not out of options yet but I think this would be worth a go first. D