Excecutable not executing (Windows)

Factual Questions
1

My sister called me last night with a computer problem. She was trying to open MS Money in Windows 98 (I believe). Double clicked icon on desktop and gets hourglass for really long time. Then the hourglass stops and the desktop icon changes to “a computer screen with ones and zeros.” She then tries to execute from the start menu with the same result. Then she called me.

I had her check to see what file the shortcut was trying to execute: it was msmoney.exe.

I had her check to see if the target file was there: it was.

I had her try executing from windows explorer: no go. Nothing happened at all.

I finally suggested running scandisk as the executable or one of the other files might be bad and reinstalling.

My factual question is if this doesn’t work, what else can I have her try?

Don’t remember what their computer is exactly but IIRC it’s a PIII 550ish MHz running W98. Prolly 128Mb of RAM.

I’d appreciate any help.

2

You’re steering her right Hobie the One.
Also, have her do a ctrl/alt/del and end task on everything but systray and Explorer, then try to open the program again.

When all else fails…go back to basics. Run Ad-aware and do an online scan at Housecall.

Ask her for exact error messages.

Daizy

3

Thanks Daizy.

She says she isn’t getting any error messages. That’s why I haven’t been able to try the knowledge base.

4

Hi again Hobie the One.
If you’re talking with her, perhaps you can get a list of what she’s got running in her close programs dialogue box, once she does a ctrl/alt/del?

Daizy

5

Not talking with her right now. She said she’d call if she can’t get it to work. We’ll see.