Troubleshooting Windows 2000
- Thread starter Vitnir
- Start date
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- troubleshooting windows
Have you checked for viruses? Do you have anti-virus software?
When a friend of mine was getting Messenger spam I couldn't load MS Messenger. So, I couldn't disable it. She had a virus.
Shutting you out of Control Panel will prevent you from removing programs manually. Not that it's a good way to get rid of a virus that's running on your computer.
I have no advanced knowledge of computers, so this is just a suggestion.
More will come from people who know more than me.
When a friend of mine was getting Messenger spam I couldn't load MS Messenger. So, I couldn't disable it. She had a virus.
Shutting you out of Control Panel will prevent you from removing programs manually. Not that it's a good way to get rid of a virus that's running on your computer.
I have no advanced knowledge of computers, so this is just a suggestion.
More will come from people who know more than me.
No virus here, I just did my weekly run with NAV 2004.
I checked MS knowledge database but didnt find any specific help relating to the error message. Since I guess the event-log is related to the mouse I have tried using a mouse of a different brand and different drivers but no luck. I even downloaded a BIOS upgrade since the helpfiles in W2k mentioned that as a possible cause.
I checked MS knowledge database but didnt find any specific help relating to the error message. Since I guess the event-log is related to the mouse I have tried using a mouse of a different brand and different drivers but no luck. I even downloaded a BIOS upgrade since the helpfiles in W2k mentioned that as a possible cause.
1. Force W2K to deliberately lose all knowledge of the mouse. Go into Device Manager, find the mouse device(s) and disable/remove it/them.
2. Shut down and power off.
3. Make sure the mouse or pointing device of choice is attached and working.
4. Power up and boot (do NOT boot off the CD). W2K should notice there is a new device and want to load drivers. If you can, replace them with the drivers off the W2K CD (or distribution media, if necessary), do not use the drivers already installed.
5. Continue to boot W2K as directed. See what the result is then.
There are easier and faster ways to do this, I know, but this way ensures W2K installs the matching mouse drivers for your installed mouse.
2. Shut down and power off.
3. Make sure the mouse or pointing device of choice is attached and working.
4. Power up and boot (do NOT boot off the CD). W2K should notice there is a new device and want to load drivers. If you can, replace them with the drivers off the W2K CD (or distribution media, if necessary), do not use the drivers already installed.
5. Continue to boot W2K as directed. See what the result is then.
There are easier and faster ways to do this, I know, but this way ensures W2K installs the matching mouse drivers for your installed mouse.
The only thing I can say I did before I noticed this error is that I got a wall-paper downloaded. I was promted to activate Active Desktop which I did. The error caused to deactivate Active Desktop and it is off now but the error in explorer.exe persists when I attempt to open the control panel.
Try...Vitnir said:
1. Right-click on the My Computer icon and select Properties. Look for the Hardware tab, then Device Manager from there (or similar - I don't have a W2K machine in front of me).
2. Reboot in Safe Mode (without Network, if you like) - hit F8 as soon as the machine starts to load Windows. You should be able to access Control Panel from there OK.
Its not a crippling problem but annoying. You can access add/remove programs by running appwiz.cpl for instance. I have reinstalled sp4 and explorer 6 sp1 to no effect. The only reference to this problem in MS knowledgedatabase is related to Norton Cleansweep which I never have had on my system. My Norton AV has no resident programs (I think) since I have turned off auto-protect, email-scanning, script-scanning and automatic liveupdate. I think I remember someone claiming that NAV can corrupt explorer.exe
I also tried to reinstall the mouse but the same error pops up again after a few reboots.
I also tried to reinstall the mouse but the same error pops up again after a few reboots.
You didn't mention NAV before... 
Yep, it CAN corrupt explorer.exe - did it to me a while back, and I was not a happy axolotl. Now that I have re-read your symptoms, it does sound somewhat familiar. I hope this isn't the case, but I fear it is.
It's possible to undo the problems caused without reinstalling the OS (IIRC, it does stuff to Windows DLL's
), but it's a lot easier to simply save what you can and start again from scratch as though the disk was corrupted. You can get loads of advice about methods to do this - I prefer to create and use a second bootable partition/disk to save the original disk contents I want to keep. It's fairly quick and reliable, but you need to know what you are doing too.
The newest version of NAV doesn't seem to have these problems; at least, I haven't run into any yet (it still soaks up my machine though!). Check with the Nortons support site too!
Good luck!
Yep, it CAN corrupt explorer.exe - did it to me a while back, and I was not a happy axolotl. Now that I have re-read your symptoms, it does sound somewhat familiar. I hope this isn't the case, but I fear it is.
It's possible to undo the problems caused without reinstalling the OS (IIRC, it does stuff to Windows DLL's
), but it's a lot easier to simply save what you can and start again from scratch as though the disk was corrupted. You can get loads of advice about methods to do this - I prefer to create and use a second bootable partition/disk to save the original disk contents I want to keep. It's fairly quick and reliable, but you need to know what you are doing too.The newest version of NAV doesn't seem to have these problems; at least, I haven't run into any yet (it still soaks up my machine though!). Check with the Nortons support site too!
Good luck!