I run Windows 98 SE and every time I restart my machine it stops responding after a variable amount of time. When I press < Ctrl-Alt-Del > to check the tasks that are running, it always states the msgsrv32 isn't responding. If I press the button to 'end this task', everything works fine again. I'd be very grateful if you could let me know what's going on.

msgsrv32 is the 32-bit Windows Message Server, and it performs a number of roles, one being to load certain Windows drivers when your machine starts. It also unloads the same drivers when you shut it down. Other jobs it does include running the Windows Shell; monitoring setup programs, and restoring Windows files if a setup program errs; handling plug-and-play messages; popping up the Login dialog if you have networking installed and its also responsible for playing the startup and shutdown sounds. Under Windows 95 you'll see it as MSGSRV32.DLL where it carries out another of its functions, handling the error messages generated by Windows drivers.

I'd suspect that the problem is caused by one of the drivers being loaded when you start Windows 98 SE. There are a number of things that you can do at this point, but I suggest that perusal of Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q188867: Troubleshooting Windows 98 Startup Problems, would be a good place to start.

One of the main components of the system VM is a program called WINOLDAP.EXE, which handles key The MS-DOS Prompt runs in its own VM. This board input to the Command is usually good, but it often causes problems Prompt VM; that's fine, except that these keyboard messages are different from the standard Win32 keyboard messages that the system VM handles. Once the Resume sequence reaches the Command Prompt window and these non-standard keyboard messages get sent, focus shifts to the Command Prompt window and its VM, and Resume for the system VM is stalled.

The reason that moving the mouse or pressing a system key restarts the resume process is that the Command Prompt VM uses the proper Win32 messages for those functions, same as the standard system VM does. If you try hitting any other non-system keys, you'll probably find that when you do get back to Windows, all these other keystrokes have been directed into the Command Prompt window because it had the focus at that time.

This is worth bearing in mind before you start Pounding your keyboard in frustration, because whatever keystrokes you send could affect whatever program is running within the Command Prompt window. Safer to just waggle your mouse in rage.

Change the value of Shutdown from I to 0, and you should now find that your system will shut down normally and not instantly restart when you try and close it down. I mention that document because it's a very handy one to know about if you're trying to troubleshoot Windows 98 SE shutdown issues. For those experiencing Startup problems, you may well find its companion document, Q188867, to be an equally handy aid.

There are a few other reasons for shut down problems, but I suspect freeing up some disk space will help you. The first place to look is the Windows\Temp folder -lots of temporary files accumulate there that should have been deleted automatically but for some reason got left behind. Delete everything except for the files created that day (which may still be in use).

Second, clear the internet browser cache files. If you use Internet Explorer, go to Control Panel, Internet Options and on the General tab on 'Temporary Internet Files' you will find a 'Delete Files' button. While there, you may want to change the Settings to reduce the maximum disk space used for cache files. If you use Netscape Communicator, the cache files are usually stored under the Program Files folder, and there may be separate cache folders for each user. Cache settings are stored under 'Edit, Preferences, Advanced' but beware: the space occupied on disk may be two or three times the maximum cache size specified here. This is because Netscape only counts the size of the cached files and not the space they occupy on disk. Unless you are running Windows NT or Windows 2000 with NTFS, each file -which may be a tiny icon just 100 bytes long -occupies a whole cluster that is most likely set at 4K. To see how much space the cached files really occupy, check free disk space before and after deleting them. Finally, look for installation files that you don't really need. Many computers come with Windows setup files installed on the hard disk (usually in Windows\Options\Cabs). This is useful as it saves having to look for the CD every time you make a minor change. But often they include stuff you don't need, such as the Online Services (OLS) and Windows Tour folders under Cabs. Your installed programs may also include Online Services and MSN folders under Program Files, plus lots of other programs you have tried and then never used again.

Of course, this is all simply a temporary fix. With the price of hard drives plummeting and 20Gb drives available cheaply, it is much better to add a new larger drive.

I assume also that you have the Windows 98 Second Edition updates, together with the recent patch for shutdown problems caused by Windows 98 SE updates? Despite Microsoft's instructions, this patch may be worth applying even when your system normally shuts down without problems, as in your case. It includes several fixes to power management issues. Another major cause of power management problems, especially on resume after standby, is buggy video drivers. To check these change your display driver to a standard VGA driver: right-click on the screen, choose Properties, then Settings, then Advanced, then Adapter and finally click on Change. Then click next, choose the option to display a list of drivers, click next again and then show all drivers. That will then give you a list of manufacturers, at the top of this list is 'Standard display drivers'. Use any one of these for testing purposes.

If using the standard driver cures your problem, check your display adapter maker's Web site for new drivers, or else try drivers listed by the Change Driver wizard as compatible with your hardware.

If that does not solve the problem, go to Device Manager (from right-clicking on My Computer and choosing Properties, or from Control Panel) and then disable every non-essential device you see listed, such as sound drivers. To disable a device, highlight it, click on Properties, then you should see a check-box marked 'Disable in this hardware profile'. After closing Device Manager you should reboot to make sure that your changes take effect.

The problem could also be caused by almost any device driver, or VXD. Try looking for drivers loaded from System.ini to see if you have old drivers that are no longer needed. Also check real mode drivers, loaded via your Config.sys file. These problems have sometimes been associated with a real mode CD-Rom driver. Sometimes problems such as this, though they appear to be Bios-related, are caused by software applications that are running silently in the background. An example of this is the Fastfind program from Microsoft Office 97 -this gradually eats up resources until it crashes. That might occur right on waking.

Having suggested all that, though, I suspect, since you have transferred your old installation to a new motherboard, your problem could be because Windows 98 may not have not recognised the new board's ACPI capabilities. Where Windows 98 is reluctant to detect ACPI and you are sure that you have an ACPI compatible motherboard and an ACPI 1 compliant Bios, you can reinstall Windows 98 using the '/p j' command line option:

setup /p j

Alternatively, if you feel confident about editing the Registry, you can insert a key to force ACPI installation (make sure you have a backup first) .

From the Start Menu choose 'Run and enter Regedit. Then click on the plus signs to open the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, Software, Microsoft, Windows, Current Version, Detect.

Shift to the right-hand window and right click to get the new menu, then choose new string value. Name the new key ACPIOption and enter a value of '1 '.

Then close Regedit and run the Add New Hardware wizard (in Control Panel). This should detect and add ACPI support. On restarting the computer, the system will then have to redetect and reinstall all the devices affected by ACPI. Since these include the protected mode CDRom drivers, which could make it difficult to reload drivers from the CD, I strongly recommend (as always) that you copy all the \Win98\ files from your CD to a folder on your hard disk and reinstall from there.

Readers with Ali chipsets should uninstall any Ali IDE drivers before installing ACPI and then reinstall them afterwards.

You may also find that after restarting you have some duplicated devices and conflicts shown. In the event that you do, Microsoft suggest that you remove the duplicate entries that do not show the conflict.

If that does not work you should try setting all the CMOS memory to default values. Since you can't see to get into the setup menu, you are going to have to do this by removing the battery that retains CMOS memory when the computer is off. Of course a notebook computer runs on batteries which can also supply power to the CMOS memory, so you will often have to remove three batteries - the main battery, an auxiliary battery (often a long pencil-shaped battery) that provides power when changing batteries and, finally, the CMOS battery. You will need to leave the batteries out for a good period (to be safe, I'd suggest an hour or more) to ensure that memory is cleared.

If that doesn't work, you can look into reflashing the Bios with the correct Bios. The trouble here is that not all flash Bios modules support a recovery procedure, and different Bios makers have used different recovery procedures. However, since the floppy drive is being accessed, it is likely that you should be able to run a flash Bios update. This may simply be a case of booting with a Bios flash update disk in the floppy drive, or on some AMI Bios versions, holding down the Home key as you boot.

If you still have no luck, its time to look around your uni's electrical engineering department for a lab with a Rom burner. This is a box attached to a computer, with a socket to take the flash Bios Rom. You need one that handles the right kind of Rom chip and you have to hope that the Rom on your laptop is socketed and not soldered to the motherboard.

I can't start Windows 98 at all. An error message says that 'vmm32.vxd is required to run Windows' and then I get dumped to a black screen like in the DOS days.

There are a number of things you can do at this point, and which you choose will depend on what's actually wrong with the VMM32.VXD file. This could be missing or damaged, your System folder might have gone missing (rare, but it could have been renamed as opposed to vanishing entirely), or the PATH line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file has either been deleted or no longer points to the System folder.

To find out which problem is affecting you, fire up your system and let it dump you to the Command prompt, which is what it's currently doing (and why it reminds you of the days of DOS). At the command prompt, type the following:

dir vmm32.vxd /s

If that doesn't find the file, then it's re-install time. It's not nice but at least you'll know straight away. If it's located, make a note of where and then rename that folder to System by typing the following at the Command prompt:

cd windows

ren <folder> system

(Substitute the name of your Windows folder in step 1 if it's not called Windows.

If you found the file in a folder named aardvark, then for step 2 you'd type:

ren aardvark system

That should now work, though I'd want to make double sure that < aardvark > really was the old system folder before doing that.

To find out if PATH is the problem, open your AUTOEXEC.BAT file in Notepad and look to see if a PATH line is there. If it is, but makes no reference to c:\windows\system, then add that to the line (with whatever directory and drive letter substitutions are necessary). To be honest, I can't see the latter being your problem -more likely the file is missing or damaged and you'll have to do a re-install.

A real-mode driver and a protected-mode driver are in conflict.

The Registry is damaged.

The WIN.COM or COMMAND.COM file is infected with a virus or is damaged.

A driver is being loaded from the SYSTEM.INI file for which a protected-mode driver has already been initialised.

There's a physical I/O or RAM address conflict.

There are incorrect CMOS settings for a built-in peripheral device (such as cache settings, CPU timing, hard disks and so on).

The plug-and-play feature of the computer's BIOS isn't working correctly.

The computer contains a malfunctioning system cache or memory.

The computer's motherboard isn't working properly.

You installed Microsoft Office 97 and you're using the Novell Client 32 software.

As you can see from that little lot, there are plenty of things that might be causing your problem. My first suggestion is that you try to narrow down the search area by following the steps that Microsoft outlines in Knowledge Base article Q273746, 'How to Troubleshoot Windows ME Shutdown Problems'.

Microsoft has a number of other suggestions for troubleshooting Windows Protection Errors: for example, if you're running the Novell Client 32 software, uninstall it and install the Microsoft Client for Novell Networks instead. Be certain that the CMOS settings are correct for your system, which can be tricky if you aren't that familiar with your hardware (consider getting qualified help if it makes you uncomfortable). Owners of plug-and-play systems might try re-installing Windows ME using the command line

Setup /p i

This switch tells setup not to report the existence of a plug-and-play BIOS should it encounter one, and it's really only useful on non-mainstream systems that might be using a plug-and-play BIOS that isn't in the MACHINE.INF file. Try installing a clean copy of Windows into an empty folder, selecting the Custom installation option and stopping Windows Setup from detecting the hardware in your system, then opting to install only mouse, keyboard and VGA video adaptor.

If You still get an error after doing that, you almost certainly' have a hardware problem, possibly a hardware conflict You'll find Knowledge Base article Q133240 a handy reference for troubleshooting device conflicts.

The VxD that's causing your problem may be either a default system one or perhaps a 386 driver from a third-party vendor that's being loaded via your SYSTEM.INI file. Anyone having Windows Protection Errors at startup can find out which particular driver is causing the problem by looking at the contents of BOOTLOG.TXT, which shows you which driver was the last to be initialised. You'll find it in the root directory of the C drive, but it will only appear after you've carried out a logged boot. To do that, restart your system and hold down the Ctrl key while your systems starts, select Logged (\BooTLoG.TxT) from the Startup menu, then restart your system again. Examine the log file in a text editor like Notepad -its last entry should point you to the culprit

When I start up Windows 98 I get this message: ' A required DLL file EZTEXT.DLL was not found'. Is there a way to clear this, or is it something that's required?

Once there, click on the Support and downloads menu at the top of the page, and enter EZTEXT.DLL into the 'Search all technical support' edit box. You'll get taken to a page that describes the problem and outlines the temporary and permanent solutions. If you look down the bottom you'll see a link to a page that lets you download the latest files, which once installed get rid of this problem.

When booting Windows 95, the system stops and gives a message 'COMMAND.COM file is corrupt or missing'. To complete the loading, I have to type c.\windows\win.com. The system then completes the load and Windows 95 fires up.

To restore your COMMAND.COM file, do the following:

1 Grab a blank floppy and slide it into the A drive.

2 Fire up Windows Explorer or My Computer, right-click on the floppy drive and then select Format from the pop-up menu.

3 When the format dialog appears, make sure you click in the System checkbox so as to ensure the system files are transferred to your floppy disk when it's formatted.

4 Once formatting is over, restart your system leaving the floppy in the A drive.

5 When your machine has booted off the floppy, type the following at the command prompt

A:\sys c:

6 Once you've done that, remove the floppy from the A drive and restart your machine.

You should no longer see the error message.

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ShellExt\target.dll

Missing Entry;

CDPlayNotify.

This happens when you install Microsoft's PowerToys on Windows 98. PowerToys was written for Windows 95 and while it generally works on 98, there are few hiccups. Find Aplayext.inf among the PowerToys installation files, right click it and then click Install. This will correct the problem. While you're at it, check the shortcut to FlexiCD that Power Toys puts in the StartUp Folder. It may incorrectly point to Quickres.exe. If so, change its command line to point to C:\windows\flexicd.exe. If you install PowerToys on 98, install the later version of TweakUI which was modified for Win98

1 Restart your computer. For Windows 95, when you see the 'Starting Windows 95' message, press F8 and then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu. For Windows 98 and ME, press and hold the Ctrl key until the Windows 98 or ME Startup menu appears, and then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu.

2 Type the following lines, pressing Enter after each:

attrib -s -h -r logo.sys

ren logo.sys logo.old

3 Restart your computer and you should find that all is well.