Wow.exe

I may be totally off base here...but as I recall the WOW.exe was "Windows on Windows" and part of the Virtual DOS machine for running 16 bit code.

Are you installing this on an NT box? What service pack?

Do you have any programs resident in memory that could be causing the error? Any DOS apps installed? Older versions of Access?

That's where I'd look first. If this doesn't help, give us some more details and I'll try to help further.

Good luck!

WOW is part of Windows 2000.... but Access 97 should work fine with WOW as well as Win2000. If you are getting the WOW.exe error, it is because some other 16-bit program is already running.

What I suggest you do is:
1) Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
2) Locate and click the following value:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\VirtualDeviceDrivers\VDD
3) On the Edit menu, click Delete.
4) On the Edit menu, click Add Value.
5) Type VDD in the Value Name box,click REG_MULTI_SZ for the Data Type , and then click OK.
6) The Multi-String editor appears. Leave this entry blank and click OK.
7) Quit Registry Editor.

If the above steps do not work, or if you are unable to create the VDD key, it may benecessary to also delete and recreate the whole VirtualDeviceDrivers registry key.

There is also a WOW key in the registry as well:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\VirtualDeviceDrivers\WOW

You might want to back that up and increase WOWsize or other values in that key to determine which settings work best for your apps (mine is set to 16).

Novell Client for Windows:

If you are running Novell Client 4.81 PT1 for Windows NT/2000 and Novell Client 4.82 for Windows XP on your workstations and you are not able to start up 16-bit applications on those workstations. This particular problem is due to a problem with the NetWare.DRV file.

TID #2961694 deals with this problem and gives you the downloadable 291158.exe file.

Entitled “No Longer Able To Start 16-bit Applications Like wow.EXE on Some Workstations,” the executable offers a replacement version for NetWare.DRV and these other files:

• 291158.INF
• 291158.TXT
• NETWARE.DRV

To view TID # 2961694, and get the 291158.EXE executable file, go to:

http://support.novell.com/
cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/2961694.htm

Source:

http://developer.novell.com/research/sections/netsupport/tidbits/2002/May/y020501.doc

Remove spaces that may have snuck into the pasted URLs.

Re: answer number 5, What did you find out?

Maxwell

From everything I've seen, I still believe it's a 16 bit process running either in the background or as part of an app. Have you tried booting and loading no other applications at all? Terminate every process you can and then attempt to load Access.

If this is not the case (and you're sure you've got no other apps running) did you upgrade the OS and the version of office on this machine? If so, there may be some legacy code that is tripping things up...