justacruzr2

I'll have to check the services for that...not sure. By created I mean the same way Windows recreates menu shortcuts everytime the clock changes from DST to CDST except that it does it all the time.

Everytime either I or Windows access a file, the folder that file was in is created again. It's annoying and I'm wondering if there is a way to turn that off. My other XP installation on my other computer doesn't do this. The big difference between the 2 systems is that one is XP on a FAT32 drive and the other (with the problem above) is XP on a NTFS drive. Is this just a quirk of the NTFS file system or can this behavior be turned off?

Thanks but I did know that. And I have solved the problem. One of HP's services was set on "manual" In MMC services. I think it was hpqcxs08. I changed it to "automatic" restarted and everything is hunky-dorey. It must be the service that starts hpqddsvc and the system must have had to forcibly start it to get hpqddsvc going and that's what the long delay was about. Don't know why the windows firewall was turned off and on unless that was what was needed to force the start. Thanks to all for your help.

Thanks. Wasn't sure about dll's. I see that after I installed SP3 there's a lot more security checking going on.

New Problem. Everytime I start the computer and go into XP Pro SP3 there is a long delay. Finally the delay ends when I see the Windows Firewall turned off and then back on (icon in the systray area). I check Computer Management in Administrative Tools and one of the entries is an error. The HPQDDSVC hung on starting. I figured it needed to be added as an exception in Windows Firewall. This is a service in Computer Management under Services and is run by svchost -k hpdevmgmt. There is no hpdevmgmt.exe on my computer only the dll: hpqddsvc.dll. Can a dll be added as an exception in Windows Firewall? I ask because all the other exceptions are executables.

I attempted to install Flash Player 32.0.2.255 and the first attempt bombed right at the beginning. Looking at the Event Viewer in MMC I found the problem was that Flash wanted VC version 9 (VC 2008) installed so I downloaded a copy and installed it. Retried the Flash install and everything went fine until the very end. There was a problem with the control panel applet. So according to the last installer message Flash was not installed. Trusting my eyes rather than a message I did a search in the registry for the word "flash". The first key the search encountered I was unable to delete. It is locked in some fashion that even as the Administrator with full permissions (I checked that by right clicking on the registry key and selecting permissions) it will not let it be deleted. What is going on here? Anybody know? I did make a backup before the install so I can put things back right but I'm curious since I've never run into this situation before. PS The key is in classes root\CLSID and classes root\interface

Thanks for the advice.

Thanks. I was hoping to find rootstore.sst. I have the system certificates in MMC and all I have to do there is click on Import and I'm done. I'll try it your way though. Thanks.

Anybody know where I can download Rootstore.sst so I can manually update my certificate store? I tried Windows Download (or Update) Center but all I got was a certificate file with a .wlu extension. Need to update the new installation of XP I did. It's the version that was released 8/4/2004 which includes SP2. 90% of those certs are expired. Thanks.

@Rainy Shadow I'll try that but I think it will probably either restart anyway or hang. @ExtremeGrief I already tried that and it didn't work. What if I go into Device Manager and uninstall the drive before shutdown and then reboot with the drive in it's new position? Would XP discover it and install it again under HKLM_SYSTEM_CURRENTCONTROLSET_ENUM_IDE?

Has anyone ever figured out a way to move a hard drive from its current position to a new position within the same system without Windows throwing fits? I want to move the drive from connected to a raid controller (SCSI) to one of the IDE cables but it just keeps restarting. Thanks.

Well still unable to find the problem. Both systems produce the same process list except for the fact that the computer that hangs seems to go one step (process) further and hangs on the load dll instruction. I do have one unused drive on my system and just for curiosity sake I'm going to install XP on it and then NU2002 and see what happens. I bet it will work. I'm thinking that the upgrade install, from ME to XP might be the problem. I'll post results next week.

After I wrote that last reply I did a Google search and found one that didn't require .NET to run. As for Symantec Live Update I saw that Symantec discontinued support for Norton Utilities only a few months ago. Timing is everything. I'll try reinstalling NU2001 with the registry/file tracker going and maybe that will show me where that hidden block is. Uninstalls are notorious for leaving garbage behind. And what I can't understand about that is they use something like an INF file for all the files and registry entries they make and all they would have to do is reverse the order on an uninstall and they would get everything. Appreciate your assistance. Thanks. I'll post the results here when I'm done.

That app helped find where the problem is. The very last line of output is as follows: Event Thread Memory Address Filename Load Dll 2924 0x77920000 "blank" My guess would be that either there is a problem with that memory address, such as a bad spot on the ram card, or the dll is missing or blocked. And I lean towards it being blocked. I already compared all the Symantec/Norton folders between both computers and there's nothing missing. I'm also assuming that Windows SFC would have found and replaced any missing Windows files. Like I said before, I had installed NU2001 before I got NU2002 and Windows did block some files with a message that they were known to cause instability. My guess would be that the uninstall of NU2001, or Windows, failed to remove the block. I did a search in the registry for a key, value or data that says blocked and there were a few but none of them had a Symantec or Norton filename. That's why I think it might be a sneaky key that's hard coded into a Windows system file. Maybe I should try re-installing NU2001 and take a look at the registry again. Wish there was an install tracker that didn't require .NET to work. I'd rather not install .NET Framework just to find this.

Thanks. I'm going to try that.

Well I use Nrton Utilities for certain things and I especially like System Doctor to able to monitor the background. The confusing part of this is that on my other computer running the same XP Pro it works fine.

Well I figured once everything froze there was nothing more to wait for. Not one key works and the mouse pointer just locks solid. I did put up task manager to watch the beginning and it showed the app in the processes so it's getting that far. Didn't notice the HDD light. It's Norton System Doctor from NU2002. I've been working on this problem for about a month and have tried at least 30 different things. There was a mention in the release notes about upgrading from Millenium and to remove NU2001 before upgrading which I believe I did. But I also installed NU2001 sometime afterwards as it was the only version of NU I had at the time and at that time I didn't know there was a compatiblilty issue. During that install XP informed me that some of the apps of NU were being disabled because they are not compatible with XP. OK....so I found NU2002 on eBay and got it and uninstalled NU2001 and then installed NU2002. The thing I think may be the problem is that a registry key (one of those 25 digit long hex keys) is still in there and wasn't deleted by the uninstall. Also Norton's System Info errors out when I click on the memory tab saying "can't find first module". One of the things I did was uninstall NU2002 and then go thru the registry and delete every key, that was left, that had Symantec, Norton, Sysdoc32 and the names of all the other apps that come with NU001/2002. That's why I think it's something hidden. By the way, the NU2002 I got off eBay is also installed on my other computer running XP and it works fine.

Does anyone know of an app that can be used to step thru or step execute another app? I'm trying to figure out what is causing an app to lock-up my computer. When I start it, I get the "working in background" mouse pointer and about 10 seconds later it just locks-up the computer and the only way to clear it is to turn the computer off. I've tried everything I can think of to eliminate this problem from uninstalling /re-installing to turning on/off services etc. I would like to see the app's side of the story. Specifically the last few instructions before it locks-up. Maybe from that I can see what it's trying to do and solve this problem. It might be a registry entry or a missing file or ? Thanks.

Thanks for the advice. As for the 98SE/ME drives I probably will have to unplug it before I boot over. It's what I'm doing now with a Maxtor external usb drive. It's a pain in the butt since many times I forget and the 9x series OS's never handled unknown devices very well and just lock up at boot.

Don't have an extra PCI slot. Also most of the Ethernet cards I've seen are PCIe. No PCIe slot in my computer.

I'm thinking about (finally) getting high speed internet. I know I will need a wi-fi router and a usb wi-fi stick. I will also need XP compatible software for both. Here's my questions: 1) Is that all I will need? 2) Since I have a multiboot computer with 98 and Millenium on the other 2 drives is it realistic to be able to find software compatible for them too or will I have to disconnect the wi-fi stick every time I boot into them? If you're wondering why this late in the game it's because I finally paid off my mortgage and now have a lot more available cash.

NU2001 on 98SE and Millennium and NU2002 on both XP setups. Neither do I....yet. If I did that on the one that is having a problem I would probably never get it unset from startup. It locks up the computer about 5 seconds after starting. I'm going to try taking the registry entries from the other XP installation and import them into this computer. I'm not sure but I think I did that before and it didn't work or it didn't work correctly. If I remember correctly, I couldn't set any performance data in SysDoc because it kept telling me that it couldn't find the computer. Hmmmm...try the one your sitting on! Anyway it's one of the more useful things, to me, in Norton Utilities. I like to see what's going on behind the scenes. Do you think anyone here might know? If so, I could post a topic on it and get some input on which direction to go. It's as frustrating as the Search Column problem we just solved.

No I didn't. Reason being is the daily driver computer XP system is configured the same as the HP XP installation and it does work as it should on that computer. I figured it was something else. The program that has the problem is Norton System Doctor (the NU 2002 version). It's the same as the HP computer. Strange for it to work on one but not the other.

Hey Dave, do you know of a free program that can trace/track what's going on in the background and doesn't require a ."whatever" framework to work. I'm having a problem with a program that locks up the computer about 5 seconds after starting it. Works fine in 98SE and Millenium and on my other computer that runs XP but not on my daily driver computer that has XP (same one we've been talking about).

Probably a symptom of the same problem. One more thing I thought of was could you use the registry from the computer that does have THE Administrator or is that computer too different? If you could, you could use 98 to backup and then restore to the computer with the settings problem. Just a thought.