startup issues

While trying to help a friend with his startup issues,
I've come to you.

The machine is a Compaq 5020 running 98 (05)

He reported it wasn't starting up correctly, so I gave it
a try. The first thing I did was start in safe mode and
when scandisk was thru it reported there was an error
reporting the amount of free space and asked if I wanted
it fixed, I clicked Okay. The startup went well until the
blue screen appeared. MSGSRV has reported . . .OE
015F:BFF9DBA7

After several tries I decided to reinstall Windows (an
upgrade of 95), but having no disk available I used setup
found in c:\windows\options\cabs and all went okay until
the same program MSGSRV32 caused it to lock up again.

I left it at that and went home, while my friend thought
it would be okay to delete MSGSRV32.exe and reload the
setup, thinking it would overwrite a fresh version of
Windows.

When I got back to it, a new message OE @ 0028:CO2A126C in
VXD VWIN (05) + 0000BC9D was locking her up on startup.

The attempt to overwrite with setup didn't get finished,
so I'm assuming that is the hang up. I can't get into Safe
Mode or a normal start now. I was going to disable Norton
Anti Virus, as I've had problems with this causing setup
to hang before, but I can't get all the way into Windows,
let alone control panel.

Compaq has a quick restore disk, but it seems to be an
automatic reformat and reload of the packaged software,
thus the lose of all data and other software.

What is MSGSRV32.exe? What are these error codes and their
meaning? How can I disable Norton from DOS? Will the CD
(upgrade to 98) run the setup better then the copy in
Cabs? Doesn't the upgrade (98) save the data and other
software?

Thanks,

Paul

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 08:04:24 -0700, "Paul" wrote:

While trying to help a friend with his startup issues,
I've come to you.

The machine is a Compaq 5020 running 98 (05)

He reported it wasn't starting up correctly, so I gave it
a try. The first thing I did was start in safe mode and
when scandisk was thru it reported there was an error
reporting the amount of free space and asked if I wanted
it fixed, I clicked Okay. The startup went well until the
blue screen appeared. MSGSRV has reported . . .OE
015F:BFF9DBA7

After several tries I decided to reinstall Windows (an
upgrade of 95), but having no disk available I used setup
found in c:\windows\options\cabs and all went okay until
the same program MSGSRV32 caused it to lock up again.

I left it at that and went home, while my friend thought
it would be okay to delete MSGSRV32.exe and reload the
setup, thinking it would overwrite a fresh version of
Windows.

When I got back to it, a new message OE @ 0028:CO2A126C in
VXD VWIN (05) + 0000BC9D was locking her up on startup.

The attempt to overwrite with setup didn't get finished,
so I'm assuming that is the hang up. I can't get into Safe
Mode or a normal start now. I was going to disable Norton
Anti Virus, as I've had problems with this causing setup
to hang before, but I can't get all the way into Windows,
let alone control panel.

Compaq has a quick restore disk, but it seems to be an
automatic reformat and reload of the packaged software,
thus the lose of all data and other software.

What is MSGSRV32.exe? What are these error codes and their
meaning? How can I disable Norton from DOS? Will the CD
(upgrade to 98) run the setup better then the copy in
Cabs? Doesn't the upgrade (98) save the data and other
software?

Thanks,

Paul

Paul,

MSGSRV32.EXE is the Windows 98 32-Bit Message Server. (critical)

To restore MSGSRV32.EXE from the Win98 CD boot with a win98 Startup
diskette with CDrom support and enter EXT. Answer the prompts,
Here's what you see:

Microsoft(R) Extract Command Line Helper
----------------------------------------

Please enter the path to the Windows CAB files (a : D:\win98
(Where D: is your CDrom drive letter)
Please enter the name(s) of the file(s) you want to extract:
MSGSRV32.EXE

Please enter the path to extract to ("Enter" for current directory):
C:\windows\system

The options you entered we
-----------------------------

Source Path : D:\win98
File(s) to extract : MSGSRV32.EXE
Destination Path : C:\windows\system
Is this okay? (y/n) :

You might be able to disable Norton by going to the
C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp folder and delete it if it's
there.
Try:
cd c:\windows\startm~1\programs\startup.

Norton should not prevent you from booting to Safe Mode though.

The 98 Upgrade should run the same from the options folder or the CD
but I would try the CD this time. Boot with your Win 98 Startup
diskette, change to the CD and enter Setup. The CD drive letter may
be one letter higher due to a temporary Ram drive being created.
e.g. D: to E:

The Upgrade should retain your programs and data but I would back up
what I could from Dos in case of a power failure etc during Setup.
cd c:\mydocu~1 (for the My Documents folder)

Restore CD's usually do a format then restore the system to it's
original state and there goes your data.

Hopefully restoring MSGSRV32.EXE will at least get you into Safe
mode but I would run Setup from the CD from Dos. That eliminates
some possible problems.

Regards,

Bill Watt
Computer Help and Information http://home.epix.net/~bwatt/