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was trying to clean up an older cpq presario and came upon the well discussed "missing vmm32.vxd" file error and upon boot up, it throws screen to shutdown and can't get to windows even in safe mode. I have read ms support and probems with umax drivers and that is not it. The problem is that I can search for the "missing" file through dos dir and it is there under c:/windows/system, however it doesn't seem to recoginize it on boot up. I didn't a have back up before this problem. I have tried replacing with other cpq presario vmm32.vxd files and no good. I have tried specifying path in autoexec. Nothing works. Noticed file size is around 230 kb and all the other cpq vmm32.vxd are around 920 kb. I have read about the file being a kernal on the original install disk which would necessitate a restore from disk. Any suggestions how to get the system to recognize the file that is there without having to resotre? or why it won't recognize the existing file and path upon boot up?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
The easiest way is to reinstall 98 over your existing version. Assuming you have a full version 98 disk, at the dos prompt type:
ren c:\windows\win.com win.old
and enter. That renames your win.com file so you can use your full version disk. Then boot from a bootdisk and install windows in the normal manner.
As part of the installation process it will ask what directory to use to install windows. It will default to 'windows.000' because it will detect that 'windows' already exists. Change 'windows.000' back to 'windows' so it will install in the same directory you were previously using.
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Hi, thanks for repsonse. Any idea however,why it won't recongize the existence of the file which is not missing? Sort of curious and hate to give up without knowing an answer.
thanks
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Not really, I assume it got corrupted somehow. Once you get windows reinstalled you may want to keep a copy of vmm32.vxd in a separate folder in case this happens again. Then you could just copy the saved version over the corrupted version from dos.
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thanks again,
on the re-install method you described - will that mean I have to re-install all the other programs also? I would like to avoid that if possible.This computer was inherited and many loaded programs are missing.
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As long as you reinstall windows in the same directory it was using before--most likely 'windows'--all your software will still be there.
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I am having this same problem. Re-formatted drive. Install win98, kept having this problem and many others. Corrupted boot disk? Win disk is not the prob.(i think, this is Microsoft, by the way.) Any other thoughts? If this were happening on this unit i am on now, not surprised given the amount of installs/un-installs i do a week. but this is a clean install. ????help me rhonda!
Name: pat
Date: July 24, 2003 at 15:39:17 Pacific
Subject: vmm32.vxd problem
Reply:
BYW, the vmm32.vxd file is built during a windows install, so it is unique for each system.
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DAveincaps
I tried installing win98 over the old as per your guide(not a clean install) and it had no effect. In reveiwing the dir and file sizes/dates after I reinstalled win98 (which took 2 hours),I noticed that many of the files maintained their same dates, including the vmm32.vxd file, which seems to indicate to me that the win98 reinstall did not update that file and the others for some reason. Had it recreated and replaced the file(s), such as vmm32.vxd, they would have been dated with the current date, which they weren't (they showed 3 year old dates)
I decided to do clean install and started format c: /s and I got a message, "not sufficient memory to load system files". I am running 104 mb memory. The base memory is 639 kb and extended memory is 105,000kb. Now I can't figure out why I would have insufficient memory to load even the base system files?Also,I noticed that I can't copy any of my system files, so while I think it is a good idea to copy these files to replaced in the future, how does one do that if the system files can't be copied.
thanks for any help you can give.
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Are you using a regular bootdisk? The message may be referring to not having any memory management drivers--himem.sys and emm386.exe--loaded in config.sys.
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I think it is a regular boot disk. Got it from my other compaq machine. I looked at the boot disk config.sys file and it has a himem.sys, but no emm386.exe. Would a missing emm386.exe file on the boot disk keep the system files from loading from a:? I have 639 kb system base memory total and 558 kb "amount free", with 104 mb of extended memory. The system files aren't bigger than 558kb and since emm386.exe only deals with extended memory management, I am not sure what difference that would make. Any comments would be appreciated. Any comments to the other points I made would help also.I am curious about how win98 overlays the existing win98 in the re-install process you described, does it replace all system files, or only some? The dates seem to indicate only some, and it didn't seem to change vmm32.vdx
thanks
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I don't know why you're having the problems with the bootdisk. Himem.sys is all it should need. Still, you might try using a different disk.
It may be a good idea to delete or rename vmm32.vxd since it doesn't seem to have been rebuilt.
As far as I know, installing windows over itself will overwrite the regular system files but keep the configuration files--ini files, grp files, etc. and apparently (we've found out) vmm32.vxd. The files it copies are all dated the same--5-11-98--for first edition. Any system files installed by other software won't be overwritten or deleted.
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Change your boot order to HD or removable devices first. You most likely have it set to CD first, and this will cause the error message you are receiving.
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Andrea,
there is nothing in the cd drive to boot first. I boot using a: drive floppy boot disk and then once booted I insert the win98 disk. The win98 overwrite install didn't seem to work, so I went directly to reformat c: and when I did that, it reads insufficient memory to load system files. I assume all the system files are *.sys and examining these on the boot disk does not exceed the systems base memory of about 560 kb. Will formatting c: without putting on system files be a major problem later?
thanks (my sensitivity level is about at the "use a baseball bat" level now.)
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If you do a fresh boot from the bootdisk and type:
format c:
and enter at the a:\> prompt, you shouldn't have any problems. If you get memory errors it could be himem.sys isn't loading because it's detecting bad ram. But still, you need to try a bootdisk from a different source.
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