SFC

I wanted to run System File Checker but sfc.exe is absent from my
Millennium Edition. It's not in any of the CABs or on the CD. I do have
sfc.dll (41KB) though. Start, Run, sfc comes up with "cannot find..."
Is sfc not a Millennium standard facility?

Thanks for help...

Vince

Vince,

Win Me doesn't include SFC but instead Win Me contains the far superior
System
File Protection mechanism which prevents the replacement of system files
by
ill mannered and badly behaved installs.

Win 98/98SE's SFC file replacement capability is replaced in Win Me by
MSConfig, which has a File Extract ... button on the General tab.

If however you are used to using SFC for logging and monitoring files,
changes, versions and dates then the good news is that yes SFC still works
fine in Me but should ONLY be used for logging. All that is required are
the files sfc.exe and sfcdll.dll from 98/98SE (perhaps also sfc.hlp). Do
not bother with default.sfc from an earlier OS but rather set up your own
SFC configuration (file extensions and folders to be monitored) once
installed in Me. I did this when I first installed Win Me and continue to
use
SFC but only for logging changes to my system files, not as a tool for
replacing them. I also do so on my PCs running XP.
--
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/e...ts/nichol.mspx
In memory of a very dear friend, Windows MVP Alex Nichol

Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Vince wrote:

I wanted to run System File Checker but sfc.exe is absent from my
Millennium Edition. It's not in any of the CABs or on the CD. I do
have sfc.dll (41KB) though. Start, Run, sfc comes up with "cannot
find..." Is sfc not a Millennium standard facility?

Thanks for help...

From: "Mike M"

| Vince,
|
| Win Me doesn't include SFC but instead Win Me contains the far superior
| System
| File Protection mechanism which prevents the replacement of system files
| by
| ill mannered and badly behaved installs.
|
| Win 98/98SE's SFC file replacement capability is replaced in Win Me by
| MSConfig, which has a File Extract ... button on the General tab.
|
| If however you are used to using SFC for logging and monitoring files,
| changes, versions and dates then the good news is that yes SFC still works
| fine in Me but should ONLY be used for logging. All that is required are
| the files sfc.exe and sfcdll.dll from 98/98SE (perhaps also sfc.hlp). Do
| not bother with default.sfc from an earlier OS but rather set up your own
| SFC configuration (file extensions and folders to be monitored) once
| installed in Me. I did this when I first installed Win Me and continue to
| use
| SFC but only for logging changes to my system files, not as a tool for
| replacing them. I also do so on my PCs running XP.
| --
| http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/e...ts/nichol.mspx
| In memory of a very dear friend, Windows MVP Alex Nichol
|
| Mike Maltby MS-MVP
|
|
| Vince wrote:
|
I wanted to run System File Checker but sfc.exe is absent from my Millennium Edition.
It's not in any of the CABs or on the CD. I do have sfc.dll (41KB) though. Start, Run,
sfc comes up with "cannot find..." Is sfc not a Millennium standard facility?

the one thing I don't like in winME is version verification. WinME fails miserably and I
think it is the cause of many user problems with mix-matched DLL files.

Take for example MSVCRT.DLL

I did a search on a WinME platform and found 8 occurances. One in %windir%\system
6.1.8637.0
The rest in various "Program Files" application folders
6.0.8168.0
6.0.8337.0
6.0.8797.0
5.0.0.7128

In theory only the latest version should be on the platform and it should be found in
%windir%\system

The problem with the mix-matched version scenrio is that it takes the reliability level of
the platform down a few notches. Based upon what application loads what version in memory,
another program may call a DLL function and it requires a newerr version of that DLL. If an
older version is in memory than the DLL function may return the wrong or malformed
information. This will then produce a Kernel32 error or some other error message or maybe
even a BSoD event.

Win2K, WinXP and Win2003 don't seem to suffer from this as easily as WinME.

--
Dave

David,

There is nothing in XP or W2K to stop an application installing a
different version of a file in the Program Files folder than already
exists in the system folder. The difference is that in most cases such a
version will, if already in memory, not normally be used by another
application which will instead load the version in the system folder.
This is not the case for Win Me and this behaviour is standard in Win9x
systems and can be a major cause of problems.

Incidentally XP isn't perfect in this respect either. One of my XP
systems at one time had two totally different licence.dll files, one used
by Rational Rose the other by, I think, by either eTrust or Zone Alarm,
with the two files located in the respective applications Program Files
folders. I was unable to launch Rational Rose unless I closed my AV (or
was it firewall?) and then had to restart the AV or firewall once Rational
Rose was closed. All due to problems with licence.dll. This shouldn't
have happened but for some unknown reason it did.
--
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/e...ts/nichol.mspx
In memory of a very dear friend, Windows MVP Alex Nichol

Mike Maltby MS-MVP



David H. Lipman wrote:

From: "Mike M"

Vince,

Win Me doesn't include SFC but instead Win Me contains the far
superior System
File Protection mechanism which prevents the replacement of system
files by
ill mannered and badly behaved installs.

Win 98/98SE's SFC file replacement capability is replaced in Win Me
by MSConfig, which has a File Extract ... button on the General tab.

If however you are used to using SFC for logging and monitoring
files, changes, versions and dates then the good news is that yes
SFC still works fine in Me but should ONLY be used for logging. All
that is required are the files sfc.exe and sfcdll.dll from 98/98SE
(perhaps also sfc.hlp). Do not bother with default.sfc from an
earlier OS but rather set up your own SFC configuration (file
extensions and folders to be monitored) once installed in Me. I did
this when I first installed Win Me and continue to use
SFC but only for logging changes to my system files, not as a tool
for replacing them. I also do so on my PCs running XP.
--
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/e...ts/nichol.mspx
In memory of a very dear friend, Windows MVP Alex Nichol

Mike Maltby MS-MVP


Vince wrote:

I wanted to run System File Checker but sfc.exe is absent from my
Millennium Edition. It's not in any of the CABs or on the CD. I do
have sfc.dll (41KB) though. Start, Run, sfc comes up with "cannot
find..." Is sfc not a Millennium standard facility?

the one thing I don't like in winME is version verification. WinME
fails miserably and I think it is the cause of many user problems
with mix-matched DLL files.

Take for example MSVCRT.DLL

I did a search on a WinME platform and found 8 occurances. One in
%windir%\system
6.1.8637.0
The rest in various "Program Files" application folders
6.0.8168.0
6.0.8337.0
6.0.8797.0
5.0.0.7128

In theory only the latest version should be on the platform and it
should be found in %windir%\system

The problem with the mix-matched version scenrio is that it takes the
reliability level of the platform down a few notches. Based upon
what application loads what version in memory, another program may
call a DLL function and it requires a newerr version of that DLL. If
an older version is in memory than the DLL function may return the
wrong or malformed information. This will then produce a Kernel32
error or some other error message or maybe even a BSoD event.

Win2K, WinXP and Win2003 don't seem to suffer from this as easily as
WinME.