' missing audio file' halts boot up.

[Parangles]

My kids Win98 Compaq presario 7594 has ESS sound built into the mainboard which went silent. On bootup it sez "Cannot find ESS PCI Audio adapter-DOS device setup utility, version..

I uninstalled it and downloaded new drivers from Compaq but the drivers would not install- tried many times. It just sticks in the 'now installing' mode for 1/2 hour and has to be aborted.

So... I bought and installed a PCI sound card and the audio is fine now, running on the new card.

How can I get rid of reference to the ' missing ESS file ' :
C:\ESSAUDIO.COM -BLASTER , which causes it to halt on every boot up ?

PLease move this post if it should be in Windows 98

Thanks !

[boxcarracer767]

Does your system boot up ok, and the message appears, try going into start-run-msconfig-startup-and see if you see any thing like an error message title

[Parangles]

Thanks!.. Nothing there, just looked again.I try to keep that to a bare minimum-only 4 items in startup. My only idea now is to get a DOS book and learn how to delete it manually. Its a pain to have to 'press any key ' twice, every time I reboot.
Cheers.

[andyms18a]

try runing msconfig and on the first tab untick autoexe.bat and config.sys as its not neaded by win98 and may solve your problam

[Parangles]

Thanks Andy that worked great. I deselected the ESS items
inside autoexe and config and it booted up no problem. It looks like a garbage tip in there... about 12 items in each, while
I have zero in config and 1 in autoexec on this machine.
Cheers !
Chris.

[andyms18a]

glad to help i allways disabble autoexe.bat and config.sys as it speeds up boot time and win98 dont need them if you have a prog that dose then just enable them a lot of old dos games complane if thay are disabled