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Missing or corrupt files in Win95/98

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This is just an advisory. Recently my daughter called me saying that when she rebooted her computer she got a message saying that her himem.sys was missing or corrupt. In addition, other files were supposedly “missing or corrupt”, like the dblbuff.sys. I did some digging and couldn’t find a solution so I had her do a restore from a CD that I made specifically for her computer.

A few days later, I got the exact same message, at home on my computer. I was too stubborn to do a restore so I dug further into it.

What I found was that somehow my msdos.sys file had been altered. After the lines of x’s there was an additional line that read WinBootDir=0. This was over-riding the WinBootDir=C:\Windows statement at the beginning of the file. I removed that line and all was well.

I am guessing that this was caused by an email virus sent to me by my daughter. Thats the only way I can explain both of us getting the exact same problem within a few days of each other. What perplexesme is that I run McAfee VShield and keep the dat files current.

Brian

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May not be a virus

In reply to Missing or corrupt files in Win95/98

This may not be a virus.

I have seen more than 1 Windows update damage system operation.

I have also seen software and hardware installs do the same.

Chas

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