Missing .VXD's on WIN98 SE PC

Jim Caldwell

I am trying to get a friends Win98SE PC fixed up for him. Actually
everything he uses it for is working OK....sound, modem, printer as well as
installed apps...all are working. But when the PC starts to boot up (while
still showing the ECHO DOS text) I get three error messages, each saying tht
a file is missing: VNETSUP.EXE, VREDIR.VXD, and DFS.VXD. THen when Windows
itself starts loading, Windows reports it is unable to load the DLL:
MSNP32.DLL. At first I did not think to run SFC at command line. Rather, I
got all four of the files extracted from the cab files on another PC, burned
them to a CD-ROM, and then once on the friends' PC, I installed them into
the directories VMM32, and SYSTEM32. I am pretty sure they go in one or the
other, so i put them in both. However, on boot-up, the same error messages
were displayed! Then it dawned on me I should try running SFC, maybe
Windows can fix itself. Well, SFC found 2 files missing, one was USER.EXE
and I can't remember the name of the other. They were both restored from the
setup CD.
I would imagine the VNETSUP file is needed for networking, which they
will probably never need....haven't a clue as to the function of the others.
I would just like to turn off the nagging error messages.
I thought I could do it by editing the SYSTEM.ini. No reference to those
files in there. Oops....forgot that there is a Win.INI file, too....would
those driver files be loaded in Win.INI?
Or....could I maybe get rid of the error messges by
uninstalling/re-installing a Windows module (applet) like networking
support?
What is really strange about this PC is that when it shuts down, you get
a beep code...one long, five short. I thought you only got post codes on
boot-up!

Groove

Jim Caldwell said this...

> Or....could I maybe get rid of the error messges by
> uninstalling/re-installing a Windows module (applet) like networking
> support?

Hi Jim,
I found this...
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/r1034726537

hth

--
º~ dªv¡d ~º

Edward Whiteley

>Did you ever work for the NTL helpdesk?
Why?, Wheather its drastic or not it WILL fix the problem
"Groove" <grooove@FRAGmyrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:Xns93E5CA519F366d4v1d@194.168.222.40...
> Edward Whiteley said this...
>
> > Try Reinstalling Win98 SE
>
> Did you ever work for the NTL helpdesk? <g>
>
> Seems a bit drastic for a first fix, particularly on a client's box.
>
> --
> º~ dªv¡d ~º

Groove

Edward Whiteley said this...

> Why?, Wheather its drastic or not it WILL fix the problem

Agreed, it will almost certainly fix that problem, but just supposing the
owner of the pc has no backups. How do you suppose that guy is going to feel
about your fix?

--
º~ dªv¡d ~º

Jim Turner

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 22:35:37 GMT, Groove <grooove@FRAGmyrealbox.com>
wrote:

>Edward Whiteley said this...
>
>> Why?, Wheather its drastic or not it WILL fix the problem
>
>Agreed, it will almost certainly fix that problem, but just supposing the
>owner of the pc has no backups. How do you suppose that guy is going to feel
>about your fix?

Reinstalling is not the same as reformat/reinstall. Reruning Windows
setup here will restore a corrupt configuration without losing data.

Jim Turner

These are missing network files (mostly). Go into settings->control
panel->network, and delete all instances of TCP-IP and then do new
protocol TCP-IP. finish. It will ask for the windows CD so have it
ready for the files. Let it restart.

Should solve most of it.

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 12:50:34 -0500, "Jim Caldwell"
<Jamesw@grandecom.net> wrote:

>I am trying to get a friends Win98SE PC fixed up for him. Actually
>everything he uses it for is working OK....sound, modem, printer as well as
>installed apps...all are working. But when the PC starts to boot up (while
>still showing the ECHO DOS text) I get three error messages, each saying tht
>a file is missing: VNETSUP.EXE, VREDIR.VXD, and DFS.VXD. THen when Windows
>itself starts loading, Windows reports it is unable to load the DLL:
>MSNP32.DLL. At first I did not think to run SFC at command line. Rather, I
>got all four of the files extracted from the cab files on another PC, burned
>them to a CD-ROM, and then once on the friends' PC, I installed them into
>the directories VMM32, and SYSTEM32. I am pretty sure they go in one or the
>other, so i put them in both. However, on boot-up, the same error messages
>were displayed! Then it dawned on me I should try running SFC, maybe
>Windows can fix itself. Well, SFC found 2 files missing, one was USER.EXE
>and I can't remember the name of the other. They were both restored from the
>setup CD.
> I would imagine the VNETSUP file is needed for networking, which they
>will probably never need....haven't a clue as to the function of the others.
> I would just like to turn off the nagging error messages.
>I thought I could do it by editing the SYSTEM.ini. No reference to those
>files in there. Oops....forgot that there is a Win.INI file, too....would
>those driver files be loaded in Win.INI?
> Or....could I maybe get rid of the error messges by
>uninstalling/re-installing a Windows module (applet) like networking
>support?
> What is really strange about this PC is that when it shuts down, you get
>a beep code...one long, five short. I thought you only got post codes on
>boot-up!
>

Stacey

"Edward Whiteley" <webmaster[at][nospam]edwardw.co.uk> wrote:

>>Did you ever work for the NTL helpdesk?
> Why?, Wheather its drastic or not it WILL fix the problem
>

Kinda like sugesting to go buy a new car to fix a slipping clutch on
another.
--

Stacey

Groove

Jim Turner said this...

> Reinstalling is not the same as reformat/reinstall. Reruning Windows
> setup here will restore a corrupt configuration without losing data.
>

Agreed, but I think Edward could have been clearer in his suggestions. If
you read his original post he actually mentions reformat as an option. In a
situation where the OP is not too experienced he may end up losing a lot of
data for his friend.

--
º~ dªv¡d ~º

billv 47

How can you reinstall without reformatting?
Bill

Manfred Preußig

Hello,
to make it clear (I've just got some error messages on this format):
Every comment is on the line directly above (or more if needed). The
suggestions are at the end. The message is not shortened since I need
some parts of it and it makes to many snip/snaps.

Jim Caldwell wrote:

> I am trying to get a friends Win98SE PC fixed up for him. Actually
> everything he uses it for is working OK....sound, modem, printer as well as
> installed apps...all are working. But when the PC starts to boot up (while
> still showing the ECHO DOS text) I get three error messages, each saying tht
> a file is missing: VNETSUP.EXE, VREDIR.VXD, and DFS.VXD. THen when Windows

I think these are all three from networking support (I'm sure on the
first two. VNETSUP means of course Virtual Networking Support and is
needed for all - _for internet too_.

Vredir is the Virtual Redirector and means that the normal MS-DOS hard
disk support all of it came from a lot of years ago is only for hard
disks and floppies so networking filesystems (like file sharing) need
some setup to make network work like a hdd -that's the redirector.

Since CD-ROM is special as well and MS-DOS couldn't work with it (for
instance the normal system every time searched for a FAT a CD-ROM don't
have) this was routed through the redirector as well. Today this is
setup a different way but older programs (like programs for old DOS or
Win 3.1x) may need it so an old DOS ganme would possibly not work
without this (I'm not sure).

DFS I don't know really but all of these xFS VxD I know are a file
system driver (for the so called VFS) so this is possibly one too -I
think also for networking (the D may stand for distributed -that you can
have with network).


> itself starts loading, Windows reports it is unable to load the DLL:
> MSNP32.DLL. At first I did not think to run SFC at command line. Rather, I

I haven`t seen this name before but normally every VxD have a DLL to
make the calls to the VxD easier to the programmer (the VxD runs in
different processor mode so the caller has to be aware of this. That
manages the DLL normally). This could be one of these (and it then
couldn't be loaded without the VxD it belongs to of course).


> got all four of the files extracted from the cab files on another PC, burned
> them to a CD-ROM, and then once on the friends' PC, I installed them into
> the directories VMM32, and SYSTEM32. I am pretty sure they go in one or the

I'm using Win98FE and there seems to be some differencies in files since
MSNP.VXD I couldn't find on my system -and the VMM dir is missing too (I
only have a VMM32.VXD file). But the others are both in system on my
system -not in system32. I don't think this is changed in the meantime.


> other, so i put them in both. However, on boot-up, the same error messages
> were displayed! Then it dawned on me I should try running SFC, maybe
> Windows can fix itself. Well, SFC found 2 files missing, one was USER.EXE
> and I can't remember the name of the other. They were both restored from the
> setup CD.
> I would imagine the VNETSUP file is needed for networking, which they
> will probably never need....haven't a clue as to the function of the others.
> I would just like to turn off the nagging error messages.
> I thought I could do it by editing the SYSTEM.ini. No reference to those
> files in there. Oops....forgot that there is a Win.INI file, too....would
> those driver files be loaded in Win.INI?
> Or....could I maybe get rid of the error messges by
> uninstalling/re-installing a Windows module (applet) like networking
> support?

I'm not sure this would work since the redirector for example is a part
of the central system (since as explained above it is neede for parts of
CD-ROM support too). If it is installed to the right dir it would work
without error messages.


> What is really strange about this PC is that when it shuts down, you get
> a beep code...one long, five short. I thought you only got post codes on
> boot-up!

I thought so too but possibly the missing VxD's makes some hardware work
irregular and cause this.


>
>
>
So the most effective fix is to install these files missing into the correct dir.

Possibly you can find them in the Setup.Inf file both on the CD and in the INF dir

on disk but this is a little bit hard to find out. Try Win\system. Then
take the bootlog at startup and look into this file to see for any other
missing files (it is long but it's better to do so). If there is nothing
strange it works normally.

greetings

Manfred P.