What do you do when...

[Tails]

My computer starts up windows and every so often, it reports that certain VXD files are bad o missing. But when I restart, another time, the problem may go away and come back again later. Why is this? It's Windows 98 btw.

[jadiepoo]

vxds are drivers for Win9X systems (virtual device driver, usually for hardware) . Did you recently install other hardware in your machine? What are the actual file names (blah.vxd)?

try this to locate a missing vxd file: (make sure you back up your registry first)
http://howto.lycos.com/lycos/step/1,,5+26+36038+91+23547+11388,00.html

If not, use google to help you out some more.

[Tails]

I haven't uninstalled any new hardware lately. This problem comes and goes. Sometimes, I get several messgages such as "vmm32.vxd missing or unable to load" (I don't know if that was the real name of one of the files, but it was a guess) and there'd be 6 or so chains of missing stuff messages. But sometimes, they don't show and even when the stuff is missing, It's there. Sometimes it even reboots itself during startup.

[mouse]

Windows compresses many VXD's into a single monolithic VXD file, this sometimes b0rks on boot ad can cause a variety of problems depending on which VXD contained is corrupt. You can download an updated VXD for either 96 or 98/ME which might stop the errors...

This page (http://freepctech.com/articles/articles.php?ArticleId=49) seems to have info down a similar track along with the updated vmm32.vxd file.

[Tails]

I'm not sure if this will work. My computer came with a couple of quick restore disks that had the factory installation on it, but it wasn't the original windows 98se disk. If I find the vmm32.vxd somewhere on those CDs (compressed somewhere), this will work then, right?

[sage45]

Also it should be noted that VMM32.VXD is the file that mouse is refering to...

VMM32.VXD is Microsofts Virtual Machine Manager/Virtual Memory Manager...

It is thus named cuase it actually does manage both... If you have device that a driver partially loads with, the VMM steps in and takes over the rest... This can be viewed by going into your system properties and viewing the driver file details on Win9X/WinME (VMM32 is not used in the NT Platform OS's)...

Let's say you use your video card, for example:

The driver file details would show something like such

driverfile.sys
|
|_ vmm32.vxd (expected.file)
|
|_ vmm32.vxd (expected.file)

The files inside the paretheses are what are expected by the original driverfile.vxd... If the system cannot find them then VMM32.VXD is assigned to carry the load... Now all API's follow a generic set of instructions so for this one file to handle that would not be a big deal, except, most driverfile's try to go above the original set of instructions, hence, BSD's and General Protection Errors and Page Faults (remember VMM32 deals with both drivers and memory, and two programs cannot occupy the same memory space)

Well how do you fix this you ask, if you go through the cab files on your Win9X/WinME cd, you will find that there are lots of vxd files that are not installed... To install them, extract them all to a directory (you will have to search all of your cab files)... Once you have extracted them, copy them to the C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\System32\VXD folders... If you get a message:

This folder already contains a file name 'filename.extension'

Would you like to replace the exisiting file

with this one?

Say NO to all instances of this message while performing this fix...

:cool:

-sage-

[Tails]

I am sure I have the files, they just randomly report as missing. But can I safely use this patch? I'll make backup of the vxd first and if anything goes wrong, there's always DOS to copy and restore the original.

Oh look at that! I'm a regular now!