Missing root certificate

[Eaglefeather]

AMD Duron 966MHz, 384MB SDRam,Win98se.

When I booted up this morning the following message appeared.

"Validation failed for, C:\Windows\System\vsinit.dll. You probably are missing a necessary root certificate."

Thinking this may be a ZoneAlarm software problem, I tried to reinstal ZA. However I got this message:

"Validation failed for, C:\Windows\temp\vsinit.dll. You probably are missing a necessary root certificate."

after clicking, "OK", this message popped up:

"Validation failed for, C:\Windows\system\vsdata.dll. You probably are missing a necessary root certificate."

Not having a clue as to what a root certificate is, I tried System File Checker. It found and restored one file, sorry forgot to write down which file it was, but do remember the first part of the file name was "setup...". Everything else checked out ok.

I tried again to reinstal ZA, but got the same two messages, so the restored file did not solve the problem.

I tried doing a search of the forums for, "validation,certificate." Got for strings but none had anything to do with validation of root certificates.


Did not have any problems with my machine yesterday until just before shut down. I was doing my weekly system check with Adaware and it found 15 tracking files.

There was a new one there, that I had not seen before, so I did the double right click thing to get more info on it. It had a Tac 3 rating and I clicked on the button for, more info about Tac. IE tried to connect to the internet, (I forgot the more tac info was on-line,) but I didn't want to go out on the net so I clicked the X button on the DUN window. IE then went off in a tangent loading blank page after blank page.

In all 20 pages loaded and they wouldn't close. I had to do a restart to get those windows closed. The restart was uneventful and everything worked fine.

What is a, Root Certificate and how do I replace it to get ZA working again. I don't like being on-line without a firewall. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[glc]

Check your system clock. Your CMOS battery may be dead.

http://castlecops.com/postt99980.html

[Eaglefeather]

Thank you for the link glc. I went to the site and first printed out the instructions, then followed them explicitly. However, although it tells me the certificate has been updated and validated, in actuality it didn't. In fact I have been getting the same error message on certain sites such as yahoo. I found my certificates and none of them are valid, they all have the message that they have not yet been validated or are out of date. So I am still unable to run ZoneAlarm.

Would a reinstal of Windows on top of itself help? I have done that before when I have had a problem that I couldn't fix. However I hesitate to use it because it means downloading all the patches again and they take forever with my telephone dialup. If I have no other choice than will do the reinstal, I am very uncomfortable being on line without that firewall.

Oh, almost forgot. I have run AVG,(a full system scan), Adaware and Spybot. All three come up clean and all are fully uptodate.

Will await your wise council.

[glc]

Your risk is not that great without a firewall - you have dialup and Win98. Have you checked Windows Update for the latest Root Certificates Update?

[Eaglefeather]

Will go out and check Windows update right now. thanks.

[Eaglefeather]

Well I went out to MS to check for updates. Everything was fine until I clicked on the, "Search for Updates," button. IE froze and had to be closed with Ctl/Alt/Delete. I went back to MS and tried again, same thing happened only this time IE would not close, nor would any of my task bar buttons work, then Ctl/Alt/Delete would not work either. So I hit the reset button and waited for the pc to reboot, with that rotten, intimidating MS message about closing Windows properly.

After Windows had scanned itself, it began to load. Well low and behold, the error message was not there and ZoneAlarm loaded. Unfortunately my wife called at that particular moment and I had to go out.

We just got back a short while ago and right away I checked to see if the other certificates are ok. The invalid or out of date message no longer shows for any of them. I went out on line to check my yahoo email and the error message no longer displays there either.

I don't know what happened but all seems to be back to normal. I don't think I have ever had windows or IE fix itself without instructions before.

In any case, again I have learned something new. I had read a mention about certificates in the past but had never really looked into them at all and had no idea what the really did. Well now I know that if they arn't up to date or are missing things can go haywire in the old PC.

Many, many thanks once again, glc, for your kind, patience in directing this novice along the path of knowledge.

[Eaglefeather]

Thought I might mention that I became concerend, after the initial joy of getting my certificates and ZA back wore off, about why IE crashed when I tried to get MS Updates. I just had to go back and see if it would happen again even if it meant something nasty might happen. However, when I clicked on, check for updates, the system did the check with no problems. The only updates were the ones for language support which I don't need. So all seems well now until the next time something wierd happens.

[moto_dad]

I am running Window ME (ya I know...upgrade) and I have also encountered a blue screen of death with the message "Windows protection error. You may need to restart your computer. System halted". I then have to hard boot and can only start in "safe mode." The problem is that the start button will not operate so this is where I get stuck. From what I'm told the problem exists with ZoneAlarm, which I have been told to remove from the PC. How do I do this without a start button to activate a menu?

[glc]

What you need to do to get assistance is start a NEW THREAD instead of responding to an old thread which is on a totally different issue. Thanks!