I have an NT4.0 box that has a problem with the VDM process running away. Whenever I try to install or uninstall a program on this box the VDM process takes off and consumes 99% of the processor and nothing else can start. Task Manager will not stop the process; I have to reboot to stop it. I have had this problem in the past and have been able to fix it with a few tweaks. So far I have shortened the path statement to SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot% and installed SP6a with no luck.
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According to MS KB Article q169171: "This problem has also been seen when security on the files in the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder has been made too restrictive. Specifically, the users running 16-bit programs must have at least Read (RX) access to all files in the folder and all subfolders. This is the configuration by default."
I had already done most of the suggestion from these articles. What I didn't try was replacing each file one by one. I went ahead and done this to no avail. Thanks for the suggestions.
I tried this answer at the same time that I shortened the path statement. It had no affect. I had to format the drive and reinstall NT to eliminate the problem. Thanks everyone for the suggestions, but sometimes a format is the only way to go.
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NTVDM running wild