problems with rundll32.exe and drwatson.exe

[bhxtyrant]

Hey guys,Having a bit of a problem here that just started happening to me in the last weeks.Recently i've been having problems with the rundll32.exe and drwatson.exe files.For some reason at certain times these files will seem to freeze up in my process list which causes my entire desktop to freeze.only way to get things working is to manually end the task for them both.it's getting really anoying and i cant think of any way to fix this besides a format which is impossible.I have to much important stuff on my PC to risk it.

Any advice is welcomed :)

[FastGame]

You need to think back on what you recently added or changed on the PC ??? did you update drivers ? seems like lynchknot always gets a visit from Dr Watson when he updates his ATI drivers. Don't you get some kind of error log that suggest whats causing the problem ?

System restore doesn't work ? XP Repair will fix the OS but not driver/software related things, but its worth a try incase the OS is corrupt in its interaction with such.
it's getting really anoying and i cant think of any way to fix this besides a format which is impossible.I have to much important stuff on my PC to risk it.
One partition ? no backup or image ?

[bhxtyrant]

Hmm well recently i havent installed any new programs besides a new version of bit torrent.I ended up removing it.Havent updated any drivers,and i did have one windows update a few days ago but this problem has been here since before then.

Don't get no error log as things basically just freeze and i end the task.Perhaps next time i will leave it instead of ending task to see if i get an error log.

System restore had no effects,havent tried XP repair yet which actually brings up a question.I currently use Windows XP pro SP2 with latest updates.My XP pro disc is an old original disc from when XP was first released.doing a repair using the out of date disc will not screw anything up with SP2 correct?

As for backups and drives i have 3 drives 1 partition on each a master 40GB,a slave 120GB and a second slave 80GB.I do have backups but none really recent (havent made one in at least 2 months) since then i have added alot of new software and have much more important files on my PC so installing one that old isn't an option.

[FastGame]

XP Repair (old CD) will remove SP2 and updates, you'll need to reinstall them.

I don't know what else, my only experience with "rundll32.exe " is driver related and I've never had a Dr Watson :( sorry

[bhxtyrant]

Alright man thanks alot :) i'll continue searcing and see what happens and if worse comes to worse i'll do an XP repair.by the way one more question,i've seen a tutorial and also heard of maiking whats called "slimstreamed XP cd" where the person extracts the original XP files from the Xp pro cd and then aextracts the files from service pack 2 and combines them.then burns them to a blank CD therefore creating an updated XP cd.anyone have any expierience with this and if so does it really work?I assume since i have an original XP pro cd this wouldn't break any laws as long as i use it for personal use only?

[bhxtyrant]

Hey guys,sorry for the double post.I am posting this new message to bump this back up and to say i finally caught the error caused by drwatson.exe.I've posted an image below hopefully someone can help me out with it now :) i cant figure out any way of solving this without going through hell.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4756/untitled8qs.th.jpg (http://img189.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled8qs.jpg)

[lynchknot]

I had one issue that relates to (below) which was causing Watson to appear then Watson itself would have a problem and needs to close

ntvdm.exe by itself is not really the culprit, it's the old dos program that is running within the virtual dos environment that is.

To give an example…

The box at work has a 1.8Gb Intel Pentium 4 processor with 1Gb of ram.

When I run the back office software and I need to connect to the registers?

This program written by Hewlett Packard called gemcom (written for windows 3.1) runs, and when it does ntvdm.exe uses between 90 and 99% of the processor!

The entire system comes to a halt while this little program runs and all it does is act like a communication relay between the registers and the back office.

I cannot even open any other programs.

So yeah, if you should happen to notice that ntvdm is running when you get these errors? My guess is that its a very old dos based program running in the background, or perhaps even a support TSR application that is running for whatever reason. (I might not have this right… "Terminal Stay Resident" apps which were used by W3.1 and W95, though not so much in W98… That would latch onto the OS kernel to hold and lock resources for various programs that absolutely needed those resources.)

Which was a nightmare to figure out if the TSR in question was poorly written, cause they were resource hogs and caused many a BSOD.

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/1849/167co.png

[bhxtyrant]

Hmm that seems to be exactly the same thing that happens with me.I got to open a program suddenly everything freezes and i cant open anything or do anything until i end the drwatson.exe through task manager.Do you happen to know of nayway i can track down exactly what application is causing the problem?I havent added anything new other then windows updates so it cant be to many things.

[lynchknot]

seems some 16 bit task is running in the background. Mine, I think, was from a prior install attempt that when bad and never completed nor terminated until I system restored or True Image restored prior to initializing the task. I'm not sure how to terminate this task once it's started.

[bhxtyrant]

hmm could this be the rundll32.exe task?i never used to notice it or drwatson.exe ever in my task manager for as long as i had this PC.

[lynchknot]

hmm could this be the rundll32.exe task?i never used to notice it or drwatson.exe ever in my task manager for as long as i had this PC.neither did I then suddenly Watson would appear for many of windows applications I tried to run (OE, IE, EV, Help, etc....... - finally ending with Watson itself crashing.

[bhxtyrant]

Damn so did you manage to solve the problem or are you still plauged with it as i am?:)

[lynchknot]

True Image and another time system restore worked. I don't know how to end that (corrupt?) 16 bit task as once it got a hold of my system, there was no stopping it. what else can you do when you boot your computer and Watson want's to crash explorer and any windows app you want to run even in safe mode.

[bhxtyrant]

Hmm i have a question.Well what happens exactly when you delete a main system file such as drwatson.exe and rundll32.exe?reason i ask is out of desperation i decided to just say the hell with it and delete drwatson.exe and to my shock it fixed the problem :eek: havent had a freeze up since and the system seems to have made a new drwatson.exe file automatically.Perhaps my drwatson.exr some how got corrupted or something.i guess when you delete the file windows creates a brand new one or something.

[lynchknot]

I think you can rename it with a "bak" extension but I believe your apps with crash anyway as I have Process guard protecting apps and Watson would try to close them but prevented by PG. Apps will eventually crash anyway. It is best to fix the problem. Are you getting any error reports in event viewer?

This is how bad it got for me: http://img271.echo.cx/my.php?image=repair7fe.jpg

[lynchknot]

geezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[bhxtyrant]

Nope i get no errors like the one you showed.The only error i get is the one i showed in the thread earlier and that was only happening when i tryed to browse folders on my hard drives.But like i said once i deleted drwatson.exe after shutting it down everything seems to be working fine.so far no more freeze ups or errors.

by the way whats with the above post? "geezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

[efc]

It has been a long time since I had a rundll32 error. Probably dates back to two or more years. My solution was to find file in Windows>system 32 folder, change the file name. Then I conducted a search for rundll32.exe, downloaded and copied it into Windows>system32 folder.

I know that it is risky to download a system file from the net. I would only use this solution when everything else has failed.

[FastGame]

I know that it is risky to download a system file from the net. I would only use this solution when everything else has failed.
Why can't you get it off the CD ?