Here's a rare thing - A computer problem.

Factual Questions
1

Long story short - My dad downloaded a program (which sends photos to be processed and then sent back via snail-mail) ever since his windows doesn’t work. When starting up it mentions a missing file “vshinit.vxd”. On continuing it gets to windows (98) where the desktop image is the one that was on the computer years ago and explorer crashes. The comp is then in a state where the mouse pointer can move, and ctrl-alt-delete will work but nothing else will work, no start bar, no right click menu, no explorer (windows key-e).

We’ve created a boot disk using the facility in the windows\command directory (bootdisk.bat) so that we can re-install windows (I am helping via the phone). but the boot disk does not leave enough conventional memory for windows setup to run.

Questions…
Is there any way of re-gaining control if windows explorer crashes and windows hangs?

Is there any way of freeing up conventional memory after a bootup?

Is it normal for a windows created bootdisk to leave an inadequate amount of conventional memory for setup.exe to run?

Any ideas?

2

Probably not. Usually once your system gets into this bad of a state, nothing short of a reboot will fix it. Sometimes you will even have to power it off.

All of your conventional memory is freed up after a bootup. Something is seriously wrong with your system (or your boot disk).

There are three types of memory in a PC, and all of it has to do with the fact that the ancient 8086 in the first PC could only access 1 MB of memory space. The video memory, BIOS, etc. was up at the top of the 1 meg space, and that left 640k of memory space left over at the bottom of the memory space. This 640k of memory is called “conventional memory.”

All jokes aside about the infamous Bill Gates quote (“640k should be enough for anybody”), people soon realized they needed to put more than 640k of memory into a computer. The first way they did it was called “expanded memory” which was a seperate memory card. Pages of memory from the card could be swapped into a narrow window in the 1 meg space, so this type of memory worked even on the original PC and XT. Nobody ever uses expanded memory any more.

When better processors like the 286 came along, they could address much more than 1 meg of memory. The extra memory they could address was called “extended memory.”

When your computer boots, it puts the processor in something called “real mode” where it emulates an old 8086. So, even if you have a super duper P4 with 512 MB of ram, when it boots off of your floppy the processor can only directly access the first 640k of conventional memory, just like an 8086 could. If your boot disk has device drivers and such on it, they will eat up some of this 640k of memory. If they use up enough of your memory, then setup.exe won’t have enough left over to run. It doesn’t matter that you have huge freakin gobs of memory in the extended memory area. The processor can’t access them from real mode.

Now here’s the problem. Setup.exe doesn’t really require a whole bunch of memory, and most boot disks are configured to have plenty of conventional memory. So, I’m thinking either your boot disk is totally whacked, or else your memory is bad.

When your boot disk has finished booting, type “mem” (without the quotes) and see how much conventional memory it has. If it has less than about 500k or so then you have some sort of problem.

The only other possibility I can think of is that the setup.exe file on your cd somehow got corrupted. Usually when a CD goes bad you end up not being able to read the thing at all, but maybe you just got unlucky.

One thing I would recommend, after you get your memory situation straightened out, is that you copy the windows CD to the hard drive, then install it from there. This way, if you ever change hardware or settings, the computer will read the data off of the hard drive instead of asking you to insert the CD.

No. You might want to try downloading a boot disk from bootdisk.com and see if it works any better.

3

Thanks for the reply. I know all that stuff about conventional and extended memory (interesting read though)

I know that the device drivers on the floppy have used up some of the conventional memory, so I was wondering if it was possible to unload something unnecesary (such as the thing that tells my computer that my keyboard is English) and free up some of that tiny memory.

To do this I talked my dad through the step-by-step confirmation, and ended up regretting this because there was FAR more going on in config.sys and autoexec.bat than I expected.

I didn’t think of copying windows cd to the HD. Good idea. If my dad still hasn’t sorted it when I ring him tomorow I will sugest that.
I didn’t get him to type mem because at the time i figured it would only be telling me what I already know - there isn’t enough conventional memory to run setup (it needs about 400k)

I forgot to mention in the OP - Safe mode wasn’t working either. Normally to sort out a problem like this I’d use safe mode, but it was hanging there too. That and the multitude of problems trying to create a boot disk (first attempt created a non-bootable boot disk. seccond attempt created the disk but didn’t put command.com on it! so we did it manually) and trying to run windows setup suggest to me that there is something seriously wrong with my dad’s comp.

4

Make sure that config.sys on your boot disk starts with

device=himem.sys

(tack on a path if it’s not in the root directory)

(And see this about the alledged Bill Gates quote. Then again, this is the guy who claims that MS is not a monopoly and that he wasn’t kicked out of Harvard. He did really make similar statements earlier regarding 64k. That’s enough weasel room for him.)

5

Ick! McAfee ???

That’s all I got. Just ick.

6

Thanks for the link.
Funny thing is - I don’t think my dad ever had virusscan on his computer! That’s one thing I can ask him tomorow.

Is it feasable that some rogue program has replaced his win.ini and/or system.ini files with different ones? that might explain the different background image and the message of a missing file belonging to a program my dad probably never had. Not to mention the not working of anything.

7

Well… (sorry for the bump, just updating the situation and hoping for some new fish)

My dad got a trustworthy bootdisk from the tech guys at his work. He used to install windows. It still requests the file and hangs.

So he’s decided to take it into work so they can look at it. He is thinking of getting windows XP…

On an oldish computer (without the abilty to boot from a CD) how do you install winxp?

Would installing winxp solve my dad’s particular problem?

8

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/evaluation/sysreqs.asp

9

In my experience, the short answer would be no.
Besides what Eleusis has already posted, you’ll find that XP prefers a clean install. (Which is bootable from the CD, by the way)

I do believe your Dad’s computer problem shouldn’t be too difficult to fix. At first glance, I’d hazard a guess that there’s some registry cleaning that needs to be done. Some errant programs that were never uninstalled properly.

Let’s wait and see what the people at your Dad’s office can come up with. If no luck, come back and post and perhaps we can help?