Help! I've become unstable. And another thing.

Ahh! What Happened? Ok I've been installing and uninstalling several files latly, also updated the firm ware for my burner and the ASPI layer thing, and now I get the dreded "Blue Screen of Death".

"Bussy or has become unstable" you know the one.

It happens after I run "scan disc" and "defrag". Then try to open My Computer, the window stays blank and freezes. I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and it says "my computer not responding" so I hit end task and BAM! the blue screen.

It's not just defrag and scan disc but it will happpen every time I use them.

Two possible causes. I think.... I recently uninstalled Norton Antivirus 2001 and a program called Cache Man. the latter is a RAM recovery tool.

Now early last year I was goofing and looking through stuff and came across a way to have windows fix it's self.
It will ask for a windows disc and replace bad or missing files, but now I don't remember where it is.

I've tried running setup from the windows 98SE disc I have, BUT I have Windows 98 OEM installed and it wont write over it.

I did use the 98SE disc, the one time I found that fix Windows thing, so if I can just find it again, maybe all will be well.

Also this problem seems to effect my "Evidence Eliminator" after cleaning, securing, and checking the free space it should shut down my comp. and go to a DOS mode cleaning. However it wont do it now it go's to DOS and stays with the flashing cursor up in the left corner. If I tell E.E. to not do the free space it will switch and do the DOS clean.
I've un/reinstaled 5 times still the same.


Now the other question: How can I get rid of the user log on box that pops up when windows boots?
I read the answer to the post made by WINSTONKS, about renaming the .pwl files but I did a search and I have none.??

Please I beg for your Help!!... This could also be some of the problem I have with burn failure?? You think?

 

The program you are thinking about and can't remember what it was is SFC, System File Checker.

Stay away from it if you don't know what you are doing. It can and will replace newer files with older ones.

Try the following, clean the hard drive including removing all programs from start up that are not needed.

Run a virus check and check for spyware.

Spy-bot is great for sypware.

www.rselby.com/cleanup.htm

Then defrag and try again.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

I ran a free online scan last week and found nothing.
Plus I just installed Norton Antivirus 2003 and ran a check, found nothing, it crashed and caused a few blue screens right after install. But I did get a full system scan.

I also have spy-bot and use it regularly.

Any other Ideas?

I just had a look at SFC and that's not the one I remember. Is there another such program in Win98?

 

I'm wondering if Cache Man left some untennable settings for vcache on your system.

These would usually be controlled through the system.ini file. You can give us a copy/paste of what that contains by going to Start>Run and entering system.ini so that it loads in Notepad.

Also when you get a bluescreen, do copy out the exact error message; sometimes these are actually helpful.

And really, you would probably be better off without "evidence eliminator". There are freeware programs, such as "spider" http://www.fsm.nl/ward/ which do much the same thing. As a matter of fact, Spybot, will probably do most of that as well.



To get rid of the logon box, I think what you want to do is go to the Network applet in the Control panel and change from Family Logon to Windows Logon. Then when the box comes up, don't enter anything, just hit enter and hopefully you've seen the last of it. You may also have to do a File Search for *.pwl and delete those.

 

Ok copy paste. here it is.
Deleted the password line just because.

I do log on just by pushing enter every time. And I found 3 .pwl files. rename all 3 of them?

[boot]
oemfonts.fon=vgaoem.fon
system.drv=system.drv
drivers=mmsystem.dll power.drv
shell=Explorer.exe
user.exe=user.exe
gdi.exe=gdi.exe
sound.drv=mmsound.drv
dibeng.drv=dibeng.dll
comm.drv=comm.drv
mouse.drv=mouse.drv
keyboard.drv=keyboard.drv
*DisplayFallback=0
fonts.fon=vgasys.fon
fixedfon.fon=vgafix.fon
386Grabber=vgafull.3gr
display.drv=pnpdrvr.drv
previousProjectorProcessID=0

[keyboard]
keyboard.dll=
oemansi.bin=
subtype=
type=4

[boot.description]
system.drv=Standard PC
keyboard.typ=Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
mouse.drv=Standard mouse
aspect=100,96,96
display.drv=S3 Trio64V2-DX/GX (775/785)

[386Enh]
ebios=*ebios
woafont=dosapp.fon
mouse=*vmouse, msmouse.vxd
device=*dynapage
device=*vcd
device=*vpd
device=*int13
device=*enable
keyboard=*vkd
display=*vdd,*vflatd
WPSLPT1=0
PageBuffers=4
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=0
PagingDrive=C:
MinPagingFileSize=204800
MaxPagingFileSize=204800

[NonWindowsApp]
TTInitialSizes=4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 22

[power.drv]

[drivers]
wavemapper=*.drv
MSACM.imaadpcm=*.acm
MSACM.msadpcm=*.acm
wave=mmsystem.dll
midi=mmsystem.dll

[iccvid.drv]

[mciseq.drv]

[mci]
sequencer=mciseq.drv
waveaudio=mciwave.drv 4
avivideo=mciavi.drv
videodisc=mcipionr.drv
vcr=mcivisca.drv
MPEGVideo=mciqtz.drv
MPEGVideo2=mciqtz.drv
cdaudio=mcicda.drv

[vcache]

[drivers32]
MSACM.imaadpcm=imaadp32.acm
MSACM.msadpcm=msadp32.acm
MSACM.msgsm610=msgsm32.acm
msacm.msg711=msg711.acm
MSACM.trspch=tssoft32.acm
vidc.CVID=iccvid.dll
VIDC.IV31=ir32_32.dll
VIDC.IV32=ir32_32.dll
vidc.MSVC=msvidc32.dll
VIDC.MRLE=msrle32.dll
msacm.lhacm=lhacm.acm
msacm.msg723=msg723.acm
vidc.M263=msh263.drv
vidc.M261=msh261.drv
VIDC.IV50=ir50_32.dll
msacm.iac2=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IAC25_32.AX
msacm.msaudio1=msaud32.acm
msacm.sl_anet=sl_anet.acm
msacm.voxacm160=vct3216.acm
msacm.l3acm=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\L3CODECA.ACM
VIDC.IV41=ir41_32.ax
VIDC.MPG4=mpg4c32.dll
VIDC.MP42=mpg4c32.dll
VIDC.MP43=mpg4c32.dll
vidc.DIVX=DivX.dll

[Password Lists]


[MSNP32]

[Display]

[ScreenTime]
previousProjectorProcessID=4294590101

[TTFontDimenCache]
0 4=2 4
0 5=3 5
0 6=4 6
0 7=4 7
0 8=5 8
0 9=5 9
0 10=6 10
0 11=7 11
0 12=7 12
0 13=8 13
0 14=8 14
0 15=9 15
0 16=10 16
0 18=11 18
0 20=12 20
0 22=13 22

 

Nothing there for vcache, but your setup for the paging file has a maximum which should not be used. What I'd recommend is that you first go to System Properties (right click on My Computer and select Properties) > Performance > Virtual Memory and make sure you have a check in "Let Windows Manage.." my virtual memory.

Then edit your System.ini file and remove these lines. You will need to reboot afterwards

PageBuffers=4
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=0
PagingDrive=C:
MinPagingFileSize=204800
MaxPagingFileSize=204800


You can rename the extension on the pwl files or just delete them and hit Enter when the box comes up.

But you should ensure you have Windows and not Family Logon selected. Also if you are not networking, for good measure I would recommend removing Client for Microsoft Networks from the Network applet. This will take Network Neighborhood off your desktop if it's there.

 

Because I'm using Evidence Eliminator, it needs a swap file set at an exact size. I uninstalled EE and let windows handle the V Memory and still got the blue screen.

I havent checked latley to see if I still get the blue screen.
I restored some things that "spybot" cleared, and I thought they looked important...??...

I think it's windows login. It showed up when the guy installed my cable modem. It's just anoying is all, I only need to hit enter to start with, so I just wanted to know if I could get rid of it completly.

BTW: The modem is run from a network card, so would I be able to get rid of the logon box? Or do I just need to deal with it?

Keeping all that ^ should I still edit my system.ini ?

 

Yes, I believe those entries, if remaining, will override the Windows settings.

You should be able to get rid of that logon prompt by deleting the passwords and then just hitting enter if you get prompted.

But here's Microsoft's complete drill, courtesy of brianf:

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71443&

I don't think you should restore any Spybot removed entries unless you know exactly what they are. The ones it prechecks are not important to Windows, just the spyware folks.

 

Thanks Rollin' Rog

Sofar it is working, I let windows have the virtual memory then deleted the lines you said.
Ran defrag the explored my computer and it opened just fine.

Now all thats left is to mess with my .pwl files

If I reset my virtual memory (for Evidence Eliminator) back to min/max of 200MB could this cause the problem again?

 

Yes I believe it could, but the circumstances would have to be fairly unusual with a lot of swap file being used. 200mb is a pretty large fixed size, but there are times when it could be exceeded. You could try raising it to 300. It's usually a boilerplate recommendation not to set upper limits on swap files, but you can certainly experiment.

It's possible the problems were resulting from the pagebuffers limitation which was very low, but I'm not really sure.