Error loading progman.exe

[Rusty1]

I am running windows me and and had recently added some software that messed up my computer booting up. I have tried to figureout how to fix this problem on my own,but am not having much luck in fixing it. I am getting the error message when I boot up "error loading progman.exe". Does anyone know how to go about fixing this problem? I really need to get this fixed. Any help would be appreicated.

[andyms18a]

have you tryed systom restor ? start programs acceseries systom tools systom restor and restore your computer to a time befor the softwair install

[Rusty1]

I cannot even get to the point where the computer will bootup to windows. That is when I get the "error loading progman.exe". I am trying to get it to the point where I can restore to where it was before I loaded the program on it, but I need to fix this problem in order to restore it.

[galaxian]

Boot to DOS and look at System.ini

It sounds like you may have a
Shell=Progman.exe
line in the [Boot] section insead of
Shell=Explorer.exe

[Rusty1]

My first problem was "error loading explorer.exe" and the fix was to change it the "Shell=explorer.exe" to Shell=progman.exe" which has lead to me the problem I have now. So this is where I am stuck at.

[andyms18a]

can you boot with your win me boot floppy and at the a prompt type scanreg/restore and pick a regfile from your last good boot if not boot with you win me cd and do a repair install

[Rusty1]

I tried the scanreg/restore but it did not work. It acted like it was going to bootup in safe ,but then I got that "error loading explorer.exe" again. How do I go about trying to see if I can do a repair install. I am not sure what I am supposed to do in order to do a repair install. Is there anything that I need to type in the way commands to do it?

[andyms18a]

no just boot from your win me cd and let it install windows over the top of you currant install all your progs and data will be ok

[Rusty1]

I tried to reinstall it,but I am getting a message that this is the wrong version of windows. That can't be because this the disk that came with my computer in case I ever needed to reinstall it. I just don't get it.

[andyms18a]

try this link http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;299313

[Rusty1]

I tried the solution at the link you suggested last night and just a little while ago again. I still am getting the error message"error loading explorer.exe". I am going in circles trying to fix this. I can not firgure out why the solutions I have tried have not worked. Do you have any other suggestions?

[Rusty1]

I think I may be making a little progress. My new problem now when I try to boot is that I am getting the error message " unable to initialize the virus scanning engine database files". How do I fix this? I am using norton anti-virus.

[andyms18a]

can you boot to safe moad then run msconfig and stop all startup programs then reboot to normall moad

[GaryRouth]

Hmm - is that Norton 2003 that you have? If so, you can boot with that disk & run an Emergency scan from the CD, just to make sure you don't have a virus problem. [to boot from a CD, enter your Bios Setup screens and look for a menu item such as "Boot Order" or "First Boot Device, Second Boot Device,. . ." and have the CDROM as the 1st on the list - - - and if you haven't entered Bios Setup before, look for a message at system startup that reads "Press F1 (or Del, or F10, etc.) to Enter Bios Setup" = and press that key]

If you have a Windows ME install disk (not a Recovery Disk, but an operating system disk), you can boot from that, or you can download a bootable floppy from http://www.bootdisk.com . . . and then try an over-the-top reinstall http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...threadid=70846

I'd definitely do a virus scan before anything else.
Best of luck
. . . Gary

[Rusty1]

I do not have a norton anti-virus disk. It was downloaded from symantecs website. So how do I do an emergency scan now?

[GaryRouth]

With a downloaded version, you have to create your own floppy or CD emergency disks, following the instructions in the Norton Help files, and run from those. Not sure if that will help much at the moment.

There are some freeware antivirus scanners that run from Dos and a floppy - One is called F-Prot, and is recommended here by some of the experienced techs [I haven't tried it yet myself]. Here's a download and informational page for F-Prot for DOS http://www.f-prot.com/products/corporate_users/dos/

The DOS antivirus scan will take a good long while. An over-the-top reinstall won't take more than 45 minutes to an hour.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[oops - the f-prot link is the corporate version. Here's the home users = free = link http://www.f-prot.com/products/home_use/ ]

[Rusty1]

Well I used the norton emergency disk,but it did nothing in the way of helping my computer. No matter what I can not get it up and running. I keep getting the same error messages. Here are some of the error messages I have encountered. Error loading explorer.exe, error loading progman.exe,unable to initialize norton virus scan,unable to install windows wrong version(which is not because it came with the computer). I am running out of ideas as how to fix this. Does anybody else have any more suggestions that I can try in order to fix this?

[GaryRouth]

The anti-virus scan was just a make-sure step. If the antivirus was actually able to run & found nothing, your situation may have nothing to do with a current virus infection (although past infections that have been since cleaned can leave some files damaged). [Why did I recommend the anti-virus scan for this error? read http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=306599]

Did you try the "over-the-top" re-install instructions, following each step? You need to disable AntiVirus both in your Bios and in Windows while re-installing. Then turn them back on when done. Here's the link again http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...threadid=70846

If booting from your WinMe disk doesn't work, try one from http://www.bootdisk.com
____________
The reason I'm recommending an over-the-top reinstall is that you've been editing some sensitive system files without much luck. I've seen the posts about changing that line to Shell=progman.exe - I'm not all that sure it's a wonderful idea (progman.exe is only there for backward compatibility with some older programs, and especially their installation routines). Seems that some folks with HPs have had luck with it. . . but you won't see that approach in any MS sanctioned fix. If you can boot the computer back into DOS again and restore that line to Shell=explorer.exe, you can then try replacing the file MSVCRT.DLL (still from within DOS) for a last-ditch try at a fix http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q299296

My vote still leans to an over-the-top: You need to get a least a basic set of working system files back into the computer, and an over-the-top reinstall is one of the easiest ways for you to do it. You have a chance that it will work without having to reinstall all your programs and data from scratch this way. It shouldn't take more than 45 minutes. Should the over-the-top not work, post the symptoms & we'll take it from there.
. . . Gary

[Rusty1]

The computer can not find the file win.bak. So how do I fix that?

[andyms18a]

rusty
it may be time to reformat the hard drive and reinstall windows but befor you do do you have another stick of ram you can try as it just may be fulty all so cany you boot from a win boot disk and run scandisk make shor the check for bad sectors is run as your hard drive may be damaged if that shows its ok then eather format your hard drive and reinstall windows or remove the hard drive and slave it to another computer to get your data then replace it format and reinstall windows unfortunutley its some times the only way to get the computer working agen

[Rusty1]

The drive looks to be Ok. I have removed my drive and have it as a slave in another computer. How do I get the data and reformat the hard drive?

[andyms18a]

can you see the drive when you boot the other computer if so just copy the stuff you want to the hard drive of the other computer when you have finished replace the hdd in your old computer boot with a win98 boot disk with cdrom suport and at the A: prompt type format c: affter it finishes remove the boot disk and incert your windows cd type E: and hit enter you shod now have a flashing E:\ type setup and hit enter agen note you will nead the licence key that came with you computer and all so any drivers you have when set up is finished you will have a clean install of windows all you programs and any data that was on the computer will be lost so you will have to reinstall them the data you put on the other hard drive can eather be burnt on to cd if you have a cdrw on the other computer or put the hard drive back in the other computer and copy the data back do not try and copy any programs as it wont work you will need to reinstall them

[Rusty1]

My computer can see the other hard drive,but when I click on it to see what I want to transfer from it,it is blank. Does this mean I need to go ahead and reformat it?

[GaryRouth]

To backtrack a little, why were you looking for the file win.bak? You don't normally have one, unless you've renamed win.com to that. If you were trying an over-the-top, one of the steps is to rename WinMe's win.com to win.bak (or to any name you wish, actually, as long as you remember it, should you need it later). The command grammar for that, from the Dos command prompt, is

cd \Windows
rename win.com win.bak

If a reinstall is attempted without renaming the win.com file, Setup will announce that an installation of Windows is already present on the computer, rather than letting you continue with the reinstall.

You could try the reinstall again: if the hardware in the computer is OK, it should finish OK. If you keep having strange errors, you'll need to let us know, in case it's time to test hardware.
___________________
You mention slaving the drive to another PC. What OS is on the other PC? If it's also WinMe, or perhaps Win98, try running ScanDisk for the drive, on "thorough". Was the problem drive an upgrade in it's original system? Is it perhaps a larger drive than the older motherboard can detect, and you were using a "drive overlay" or "translation" type of software (such as EZ-Bios) to be able to use the entire drive? (You can tell if you use fdisk's option 4, which is only informative, and doesn't make changes = look at the drive in question, and see if the partition information reads as "Non-Dos"). . .

What operations have you attempted on the problem drive? Did you already use fdisk to make changes? If any partition changes are made with fdisk, all data prior to that action is lost.

Since you've invested a lot of time already, you might want to run a diagnostic on the problem hard drive, just to make sure there's not a hardware failure going on here. This will keep you from losing time chasing down software problems that are actually caused by faulty hardware. Go to the website of the hard drive's manufacturer to download the diagnostics (Powermax for Maxtors, DataLifeGuard for Western Digital, SeaTools for Seagates, etc). The downloads usually create bootable floppies = the diagnostics run from DOS.

Sorry this is such a long post. Let us know if you have more questions
. . . Gary