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What is ntvdm.exe

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by hdrysdale 2 views

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I was wondering what the Windows NT 4.0 application ntvdm.exe (NT Virtual Dos Machine) located in Winnt\System32 does? We are experiencing an error message "ntvdm.exe DLL initialization failed, c:\Winnt\system32\kernel32.dll failed, terminating abnormally" several minutes after logging into PC, and it keeps coming back periodically.

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by philando

16-bit application running on NT4(win32)uses the ntvdm subsystem to execute. It simulates the 16-bit environment ( for mainly dos programs). You might want to make sure the following files are on your machine in %windir% or %windir%\system32 folders. Try replacing these files with ones from another NT machine.

MS-DOS Virtual DOS Machine (VDM)
NTIO.SYS - The equivalent of IO.SYS on MS-DOS machines.
NTDOS.SYS - The equivalent of MSDOS.SYS.
NTVDM.EXE - Win32 Application.
NTVDM.DLL - Win32 Application.
REDIR.EXE - Virtual Device Driver (VDD) redirector for the VDM.

Check out these knowledge base articles:
Q196453, 220155, 195904, 242096

Good Luck

by tlpayne

ntvdm.exe is the NT Virtual DOS Machine (NTVDM) which provides a DOS-compatible environment for DOS programs.

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