# Windows start-up problems - what should I do?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-start-up-problems-what-should-i-do/211658>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 6, 2003, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-start-up-problems-what-should-i-do/211658 "2003-11-06T04:55:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2003, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-start-up-problems-what-should-i-do/211658/1 "2003-11-06T04:55:37Z")

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A friend (honest) asked me to look at his computer as he is getting a bunch of errors on start-up of Windows ME. Sometimes the machine is left dead, other times some programs don’t work.

He gets a mass of messages of the form \<program name\> caused an error in win2\_32.dll. Many programs issue this message, including sometimes Explorer. When Explorer issues it, the machine dies as there is now no desktop.

He has a Dr. Watson print-out that indicates that at some point our good friend AOL trampled on somebody else’s memory.

A virus scan and disk scan show the machine to be clean and no disk errors.

The machine does start up OK in Safe Mode.

At this point, I suspect the registry.

I reinstalled WinME. During the final configuration step, it gave an error on running a registry script (and like a fool I didn’t write it down), then a ton of errors from regsvr32.

The machine still didn’t work.

I then tried the installation again, but this time after booting from a WinME startup diskette in case the installation was having errors because of the sick state of a full Windows boot. No joy.

What now?

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**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2003, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-start-up-problems-what-should-i-do/211658/2 "2003-11-06T06:31:23Z")

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Wish I could be of more help, but Dr. Format fixes all…

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**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2003, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-start-up-problems-what-should-i-do/211658/3 "2003-11-06T15:38:48Z")

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What kind of computer is it? You could have tried scanreg /restore but too late now cause you reinstalled. Probably you forgot to turn off any Bios/virus boot protections so it couldn’t write a new boot sector when you put Me back on. Try to reinstall with no Bios protections active.

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**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2003, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-start-up-problems-what-should-i-do/211658/4 "2003-11-06T15:42:54Z")

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It is a Dell Dimension Pentium II-450. He’d already tried to reinstall, and failed, before calling me. I looked at the system restore option, but nothing had been saved.

Wouldn’t installing after booting from the Me startup disk have turned off Bios/virus boot protections? If not, how do I turn the Bios protections off?

Thanks for your help.