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not enough memory to start wsock32.dll

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by bytj 1 view

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I have a windows 98 work station. I am not able to open a lot of programs smoothly. When I clicked to run a program, it tells that "There is not enough memory to start WSOCK32.DLL. Quit some programs, and then try again." However, I did not openany program yet. I used Norton AntiVirus to scan a virus without any results. Also, this workstation can not login to the network, nor could get any email. I still doubt if there is any virus there preventing this machine working properly. Or there is any error on this machine?

Any idea on this problem?

5 replies

by avachon

hi, you don't say how much memory is in the machine. It may indeed be too low. Even though you have not started an application, 98 runs many apps. and services in the background which uses resources. To see what is running on the machine, hold down ctr+alt+delete (at the same time)and a screen will come up showing you what is running. You can try exiting out of everything except explorer.exe and systray (BTW, don't hit crtl+alt+delete twice or the machine will reboot). If you don't want to do that, temporarily disable your virus software (which runs in the background) and see if you have a little better luck opening some items that have been a problem. After freeing some resources, and if the problem goes away, purchase and install more memory for the machine. Hope this helps.

by earnest

Two other options:
1. Winsock.dll is the correct program. I think winsock32.dll is an invalid virus renamed program. Update your virus definition files an again.
2. another option would be to boot to dos mode and go to the windows folder and rename winsock32.dll to winsock32.old < it doens't matter>. Look for winsock.dll if you can't find it extract it from your cab files or the cabs files on your cd-rom.
3. Ceck how much hard disk you have. Some virus make garbage files and fill your hard drive with them. Look in c:\windows for a file named aa???aa.doc where ??? is a wildcard for an incrementing number.
If found delete.
after running your virus scan on the whole disk reboot. Usually when winsock is renamed there is a scrap program in the windows subdirectory, ska is an example. It also rewrite the registry to rename wonsock to something else and creates a false one winsock32.dll
You could boot to dos and use scanreg /restore to restore an earlier version of your registry before infection and then update virus definitions and run from inside windows.

Good Luck,
Bo

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