The Digital Surgery

[Norseman]

I experienced a weird problem yesterday after running a DOS program I’ve used countless of times. (A birthday reminder program).
After closing the program the system (XP Pro) froze up.
Reeboted the system in safe mode to find out what was wrong but everything, (seemingly), was ok.
Reeboted again in normal mode and it took ages before anything happened.
Got a message saying that MSVCR80.DLL was missing.
(That is a driver file for Windows Live Messenger).
That’s strange because I never use Messenger.

After that I got the mother of all computer freaks nightmare, Blue Screen or the sudden death message.

Reeboted my pc with an old HD to gain access to my messed up harddisk and found out that the Boot.ini file had been changed by something.
Did virus and spyware check but nothing was found.

I then deleted the Boot.ini file on my new harddisk, copied the old Boot.ini file from my old harddisk to my new harddisk, removed the old harddisk and rebooted again.

Lo and behold! Everything works perfect!!

My question is; what on earth can change the content of the Boot.ini file?
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I intend to live forever -- so far, so good.

[MrPlum]

Hi Norseman

Good thinking using another boot disk.

The first question that comes to mind is 'have you changed/installed/downloaded anything'? Not all virus/malware checkers identify everything out there.

MSVCR80.DLL is apparently not specific to Messenger. See.. http://theharbourfamily.com/jonathan/?p=185

'“This application has failed to start because MSVCR80.dll was not found”

Odds are you have searched the web for possible fixes and found more “solutions” than you could count. Turns out Microsoft doesn’t believe in sensible error messages because this MSVCR80.dll error comes up for a variety of reasons.'

Other search results support this.

If it happens again, you might try going back to a previous restore point.

[Norseman]

Yep Mr Plum, you're right about all the solutions offered by the net.
Restore point didn't work because (I think) the Boot.ini file is not supposed to be messed with and will therefore load as usual no matter what restore-point date you use.
Again, this is what I think, not what I know!

Nothing installed, changed or even tampered with.
It just happened.
_________________
I intend to live forever -- so far, so good.

[Guess]

The boot.ini is not to be messed with lightly. XP should not really let you (the user) have access to it. It seems though that it can be opened for writing (perhaps wrongly) if old DOS applications are run. This is to ensure that the components of XP are picked up from the correct drive when the DOS application exits.

A significant thing here is the file system. If you have NTFS on your system partition then problems can occur if the process that has boot.ini open crashes without closing. You then cannot boot up from floppy and restore a good boot.ini.

This is one of the many reasons I use dual boot. If one goes awry the other can be booted and the first system disk becomes available.

Another way is to have a FAT32 system partition and then boot from a DOS floppy. You can then boot DOS from a floppy and restore any broken files.

If you get a cannot load "something.dll or sys or exe" go into safe mode and run msconfig. Uncheck all startup programs and physically unplug your modem/router. Boot XP again and try to reload anything dodgy. If you don't use messenger then ensure it is completely erased from your system disk. I even delete the folder and manually edit the registry but not to be recommended unless you have a good fallback position.

Another must is system restore. Many people have problems with it but if you create a restore point when everything is stable immediately after a reboot you can then restore to that position from safe mode or "boot from last know good configuration".

You do have to ensure that create restore point has the correct files to save first and of course it takes disk space.

Hard disks are cheaper than CD-Rs now so buy a new one.
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Remember. A turkey is for life not just for Christmas

[Guess]

[Norseman]

[Guess]

OK,

Click start > run type "msconfig" and open startup. Look at what is started and uncheck anything you do not want. I have just taskswitch, ctfmon (essential I think) ashDisp (Avast anti virus gui), and unlocker assistant checked. The last one is just for me to delete files that are locked by stubborn processes. Taskswitch is optional but a pain for me if it is not running.

Anything else I would consider unchecking and rebooting. Your boot up will speed up for sure.
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Remember. A turkey is for life not just for Christmas

[buksida]

Removing Norton Bloat-Works will also speed up general operation.
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Luctor et Emergo

[BaaBaa.]

[buksida]

[caller]

Didn't know where to post this, so feel free to move if better in the XPSP3 thread.

And I really am showing my true ignorance here. I was just preparing to install SP3 and looked at the above advice again, thought I'd use disk clean-up, then move things into different folders, do a full back up etc.

But what the hell can I safely delete in disk cleanup or is that too big a question? All temp files? What about windows stuff I don't use? The problem is I'm worried I might check something that loses me lots I don't want to lose!

Any help appreciated.

Thanks
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I know nothing

[Big Boy]

My non-technical advice is, if you're not sure, leave it alone ie if its not broken, why risk breaking it.

You can always get rid of it another time.
_________________
Green Army position 7=
Plymouth Argyle 1 - 2 Blackpool
Who said, "I've dumped PAFC for Eutopia at Liecester?"
Ian Holloway (job seeker extrordanair)

[caller]

Thanks BB, I actually managed to ID most of what was there. Amazing how many temp internet files there were!

Okay last dumb question (I hope). How do I get to restore points? This is something I seem to have forgotten and my brain isn't functioning much this am.
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I know nothing

[Big Boy]

Sorry, can't help with that at the moment, I'm using my Vista machine today. Knowing MS, the procedure probably varies significantly between XP and Vista - I would hate to mislead you.
_________________
Green Army position 7=
Plymouth Argyle 1 - 2 Blackpool
Who said, "I've dumped PAFC for Eutopia at Liecester?"
Ian Holloway (job seeker extrordanair)

[Guess]