msconfig wont start

M

magik20

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 10, 2002
Messages
1,241
i try to run msconfig, and the screen flashes and nothing happens.

i also tried reinstalling the tool, to no avail.

any help?
 
try a system files check.

Run > cmd > sfc/scannow

The last in the dos prompt window.
 
You have a virus.

Get into safe mode and take a look through your machine>software>microsoft>windows>currentversion>run and runservices keys and remove anything funky, then remove the files from your computer.
 
Milenko said:
You have a virus.

Get into safe mode and take a look through your machine>software>microsoft>windows>currentversion>run and runservices keys and remove anything funky, then remove the files from your computer.
Click to expand...
Yes this is a typical symptom of some of the newer Viruses running around, it is also possible that your regedit might not work either. Boot into safe mode and see if either works there and check your start up entries as milenko stated. Also if you can, run an online virus scanner like TrendMicro's Housecall and see if you can get any results, and if you can remove them. You might have to copy msconfig from another machine depending on how the file is infected (if it is just attached and the virus scanner sucessfully removes it, or if it just ends up deleting Msconfig altogether when you "fix" it). I would suggest repairing the virus before you attempt to copy a new instance of MSCONFIG on to your computer, chances are the virus will just reinfect the file if you don't. Good luck.
 
Milenko said:
You have a virus.
Click to expand...

A virus on my sister's machine did this, my bet is that you won't get into regedit either. If you can, there are some great suggestions above. If you can't, you might try this:

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"DisableRegistryTools"=-

edit: OK, I don't know why there is a space in the word SYSTEM above. If you copy / paste, be sure to remove that space or it won't work right.

Copy and paste that into notepad and save it with a .reg extension. When done, double-click the file and say yes to enter the info to the system registry. You should then be able to get back into system tools such as MSConfig and regedit.

Apologies, I don't remember if you have to log off / on to get back in.

Cheers.
 
i did a virus scan w/ norton in safe mode (latest refs & its NAV 2004)

nothing found...
 
It's not uncommon for viruses these days to cripple the scanning engine. Just like in older versions of Windows, the best thing you can do is to run a virus scan OUTSIDE of the Windows environment, not just in safe mode. Use a utility like BartPE to create a bootable CD with scanner and try that. In either case, it's good to have lying around as it's useful. I also haven't had much luck with Norton lately. The latest virus that I found was ignored by Norton, picked up only on an outside scan with Mcafee, but NOD32 nailed it right away. It couldn't get rid of it, I had to do that manually, but it did find it.

If you can get into regedit, do what was suggested above by a few people and see if you can find anything in there. Also, look for any type of APPINIT that is calling a strange DLL or EXE from a different part of the registry.

If you can get it to work, you might want to take a look at using something like HijackThis to see if you can find something there. You can usually post the log here to see if there is anything. However, HijackThis might not pick up an APPINIT in a part of the registry its not accustomed to scanning.

Or, like was suggested, you might try to run SFC to see if it finds anything.

Hope any of this helps and keep us posted.

Cheers.
 
Just get a copy of msconfig from someone else, burn it to disc and run it form there. But it is most likely that you have a virus, Exploit-MthDir or ones of its variants did this, we see this all the time in the shop it pretty common.
 
paymepunk said:
what OS are you running, or did i not read the post
Click to expand...
Yeah that was my first thought... you know msconfig isn't on Win2K right? Just making sure that you're not used to XP but trying it on a 2K machine.
 
nomar said:
Yeah that was my first thought... you know msconfig isn't on Win2K right? Just making sure that you're not used to XP but trying it on a 2K machine.
Click to expand...

you can copy msconfig file from xp and throw it into 2k tho
 
Its windows XP

im gonna try Trend micros scanner, but im pretty positive (since this has been going on for months, with no luck) that this isnt a virus program but something screwed up in the registry.

i'll keep ya posted.
 
I would agree it's a registry thing. Can you get into regedit? If not, you can d/l Xteq Xsetup and use it to restore access to the registry. There should be a heading for disable registry in there, it will produce a VB Script (very much like the one above) that should take care of it.

Cheers.
 
i can get into regedit, so i can make changes to the registry

somewhere along trying to fix this, i did something because now im getting this error


"system configuration utility cannot read config.sys (also says it cant find autoexec.exe, system.ini & win.ini) because a error occured.

system cannont find the specified path"

werid
 
So does it acutally continue on to msconfig? Do you actually have those files (have to ask?) And should it be asking about autoexec.bat or .exe(!?) or config.sys? I've not yet seen an XP machine that looks for those....

Cheers.
 
it does continue to msconfig, but only in a "view mode" i cant change any of the startup settings.

my config.sys file is on the root of my c:, and its 0kb in size?

system.ini same place, 1kb in size

win.ini same place, 2kb in size

autoexec.bat same place, 0kb in size

i have write access to all these files
 
icthus13 said:
try a system files check.

Run > cmd > sfc/scannow

The last in the dos prompt window.
Click to expand...

Have you tried this? It's the best advice given so far.
 
adarrell said:
my config.sys file is on the root of my c:, and its 0kb in size?
Click to expand...
That's where it's supposed to be, and 0K in size.

system.ini same place, 1kb in size
Click to expand...
This should be in the c:\windows directory (assuming c: is system drive), size ok.

win.ini same place, 2kb in size
Click to expand...
This should also be in the c:\windows directory, and it's 1k bigger than mine on comparison, but that doesn't mean a whole lot.

autoexec.bat same place, 0kb in size
Click to expand...
Should be ok.

i have write access to all these files
Click to expand...
Moving those to the correct directory should solve the path issue, but may not take care of the "view only" mode. Still looking at that...

Another thing to ask, and I may have missed this, you do have admin privileges, correct? You probably do as you can get into regedit.

And you did run the SFC like ^^^ suggested? Correct?

Cheers.
 
It sounds like you have the version of msconfig from windows 98 installed, instead of the XP version. I remember that it used to have about 5 dialog boxes at startup, when run on 2k, and the only active windows was the startup window.

Try downloading a new version here. Be sure to pick 2k/XP version

http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/msconfig.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top