Hi, I need help! I've got a 5 year old 550mhz Pentium III machine running Windows 98SE. Until recently I had slow Internet dail up and so didn't regularly update my system software. I've now got broadband and whilst surfing the other day Windows Media Player informed me that an update was available so I went ahead and downloaded it. It had a few things in the list, one of which I think said something like Roxio CD Burner. Unfortumately after dowloading the updates and getting to the point of almost finishing, I got the message 'Installation Failed. You must now reboot your PC'. Upon rebooting my PC now just hangs. It gets to the point just after the Windows 98 splash screen, it goes back to the previous screen that has something like 'Windows 98 Set Up' at the top. The cursor is at the top of the screen and is blinking. I think this is just before the point it normally displays the Windows login screen (I have 2 user ids set up on the PC). Luckily I can boot up the PC in Safe Mode but I'm struggling to find out exactly what the problem is. I removed Windows Media Player 9 via Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs to see if that would solve the problem but it didn't. I started my PC in Logged.txt mode but I don't know if this is telling me anything useful or not. The log contains about 50 entries for fonts like: LoadStart = C:\windows\fonts\TREBUCBD.TTF LoadFail = C:\windows\fonts\TREBUCBD.TTF Failure code is 0016 I assume this is no big deal? The last entries are: [00134FE9] Starting Unknown (HTREE\RESERVED\0) [00134FE9] Started Unknown (HTREE\RESERVED\0) [00134FEA] Enumerating Unknown (HTREE\RESERVED\0) [00134FEA] Enumerated Unknown (HTREE\RESERVED\0) Any idea if these are significant or not? If so, what do they mean? Also, any idea as to what actions I can take to get to the root cause and how to fix it?? Any suggestions gratefully accepted as I'm a bit stumped and I'm getting grief from the wife and kids as the PC is out of action! Thanks, Chris

Hi Chris, It's a very clear, well written msg; all too rare in this neck of the woods. You might get by the TTF loads but the "unknowns" look pretty daunting. If it was mine I'd install 98 "over" the existing installation. If you go that route, tell it to use the current directory. [presumably c:\windows] or you may wind up with another instance in c:\windows.000 ; another mess to fix later. If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Booting to dos standalone and typing: scanreg /restore Selecting the last good day, will in effect remove all the updates and probably will get you running. Your decision.

And then run MSCONFIG--STARTUP and disable anything there that searches for updates.

Thanks for the replies. That's the last time I download any updates! The good news is that I've got it working now but I'm not too sure why! I ran RegClean to clean up my registry but that didn't seem to help. I then tried a Step-by-Step Confirmation startup and I found it was hanging on something (a driver?) called ptvcd.vxd which appears to be the last thing it does before displaying Windows. As far as I can tell, ptvcd.vxd hasn't changed since it was first installed. Playing with the Step-by-Step Confirmation startup (ie saying No to selective things) I managed to get the error message : While initialising device IFSMGR: Insufficent memory to initialise windows. Quit one or more memory resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer. Out of interest, I removed the running of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file via MSCONFIG and Windows loaded up successfully. My system seems to be fully working and I can't see any problems by not running AUTOEXEC. Has anyone got any idea if it is ok not to run AUTOEXEC? My AUTOEXEC.BAT looks like: @ECHO OFF SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T2 SET SNDSCAPE=C:\WINDOWS REM == Please Do not modify the next line == CALL C:\WINDOWS\RECOVERY\CHECK.BAT REM ======================================== LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MOUSE LH keyb uk,,c:\windows\COMMAND\keyboard.sys @C:\PROGRA~1\NORTON~1\NAVDX.exe /Startup GOTO %CONFIG% :1 GOTO WIN :2 :2A rem - By Windows Setup - LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.exe /D:CD-ROM /M:10 GOTO END :2B rem - By Windows Setup - LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.exe /D:CD-ROM /M:10 GOTO END :2C rem - By Windows Setup - LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.exe /D:CD-ROM /M:10 GOTO END :END LH COMMAND /K :WIN set PATH=%PATH%;C:\SQLLIB\BIN;C:\SQLLIB\FUNCTION;C:\SQLLIB\SAMPLES\REPL;C:\SQLLIB\HELP;C:\MSSQL7\BINN IF EXIST C:\IMNNQ_98\IMNENV.BAT CALL C:\IMNNQ_98\IMNENV.BAT set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;C:\SQLLIB\INCLUDE set LIB=%LIB%;C:\SQLLIB\LIB set DB2INSTANCE=DB2 set DB2TEMPDIR=C:\SQLLIB set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;.;C:\SQLLIB\java\db2java.zip;C:\SQLLIB\java\runtime.zip;C:\SQLLIB\java\sqlj.zip Thanks, Chris

Hi Chris, Good work. If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2