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Cannot find win.com

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by vahur

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During boot-up, right after executing autoexec.bat I get an message that it couldn't find win.com and therefore couldn't start windows. But when I then manualy type in the location for win.com, the PC boots up.
Machine is running on Win98SE. Programs suchs as Norton Windoctor, DrWatson, Scandisc and SFC didn't find anything suspicious.
Any ideas, anybody?
Thanks,
Vahur

5 replies

by charley

Modify the "Path=" statement in your Autoexec.bat to reflect the path to win.com. Generally, win.com resides in c:\windows. Thus, you might put a statement at the end of your Autoexec.bat file similar to the following:

path=%path%;c:\windowsThat should do it.

by vahur

Thanks, you pointed me towards correct solution. I reinstalled autoexec.bat from backup.
Vahur

by billygilbreath

Win95 and later do not require CONFIG.SYS nor AUTOEXEC.BAT. These operating systems get their direction to WIN.COM by reading the hidden file in the root directory called MSDOS.SYS. This is a text file and can be edited just like AUTOEXEC.BAT except that it has the hidden and read-only attributes set. Remove those attributes and examine it making sure that you have:

[Paths]
WinDir=C:\WINDOWS

where "C:\WINDOWS" is the path to your WIN.COM file.

by vahur

Thanks, but I checked msdos.sys and it was OK. I restored autoexec.bat from previous backup, and everithing was fine again. The mashine has Symantec Visual Cafe installed and it has a few lines in autoexec.bat. Maybe that's why it still needs it. Vahur

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