Something happened to my win 98 OS. I run a gateway GP6-450 which has run fine for years. About 2 weeks ago I think I got infected by spyware or something. Virus detection found nothing. Ran a few other system evlaution tools and aid everything was fine. Then I noticed that when I typed the strokes were being delayed by up to 10-15 seconds before they would show up on the screen. Then when I tried to boot up all I got was an error message that said cannot find a device file that may be needed to run windows. Windows registry or system.ini refers to this device but the device file no longer exists. You need to reinstall C:\windows\system\vshinit.vxd When I hit return after this error message all I see is my display screen which is the windows background of clouds that I have always used. Nothing else shows up on the screen. (every couple of times an explorer error message comes up advising that the program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down) When I close that box I get a totally blank screen with NO ICONS for anything. I guess that I will have to re-install windows 98, however, this machine has some very, very important files and emails in out look that I must not lose. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The last back up was 2 months ago and yes the information in outlook is since then, so this is nission critical. IAny ideas would be greatly appreciated. More information can be provided. Thanks, RM

I believe that file is associate with McAfee Safe and Sound. Boot into safe mode and see if you can then load your desktop. Run regedit and follow the instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q280135 Please post back..

Here are a couple of links that may help you. http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/vxd.htm http://www.tek-tips.com/gfaqs.cfm/lev2/3/lev3/21/pid/38/fid/1993 <<< What life throws you is not your choice. What you throw back is. >>>

Restart the computer and hold down the Ctrl key until you see a Startup Options menu. From the menu select Command Prompt Only and Enter. That will give you the C:\Windows\> prompt, and with some basic DOS commands you can back up your important files. If you want to go a step further, you can enter the command, edit system.ini , at the C:\Windows\> prompt. In the text editor find the line, shell=explorer.exe . Change it to, shell=winfile.exe . Press Alt+F then Alt+X and select YES to save and exit. Restart the computer and let it boot to the File Manager. From there you can browse your important files and back them up. If you want to go a step further and try a repair, search for a file named C:\Windows\System\shdocvw.dll. If it's not there find shdocvw.bak and rename it to shdocvw.dll. Then run C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\ie6setup.exe . After the setup is complete, open system.ini in Notepad and change the line shell=winfile.exe back to shell=explorer.exe . Save and exit Notepad, then exit File Manager. Restart the computer and see if it will start Windows normally.