Message when booting into Win98

[smasso]

I have a friend with win98 that recently formatted and reinstalled. Everything works just fine, except when booting to Windows, this appears first.

Unable to load the dynamic link library
msnp32.dll
The system cannot find the file specified.
Some or all of the following feature is not available
MICROSOFT NETWORK

Just canceling it works, but it's an annoyance.

I have checked the startup in Start\ Programs and MSconfig, but nothing is there. I have searched win.ini and system.ini to see if it's in the load or boot. I downloaded the msnp32.dll, but don't know where to put it. (tried windows\system.) Where else should I look? Thanks for any suggestions. Sally

[GaryRouth]

Hi smasso

There are a couple of things you can do to fix this. If you want, you can just go to Start / Settings / Control Panel / Add/Remove Programs / Windows Setup - and uncheck all the Network components to uninstall them, reboot, and then go back to the Control Panel again, and this time under Windows Setup re-select the Network components and re-install them. Should only take a few minutes.

Or you can just extract the file, uninstall Client for Microsoft Networks and reinstall Client for Microsoft Networks.

Here's the Microsoft Knowledge Base article for your situation:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q243431

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[smasso]

Hi Gary--Your answer looks like a winner. I will do the first one--it looks like the easier. But first I'll go to the KB and read about it. I won't be able to give you the results right away because I have to visit my friend again. She is elderly, and this problem has been bothering her a lot. She thinks she's done something wrong. Thanks so much--Sally