How do you get rid of an operating System?? Forums

olley · Campsite DB Admin

Hi computer crashed yesterday, no big deal just reboot, after a few minutes up comes “windows cannot find browseui.dll” ok. keep loading, up comes the screen, its blank, just the screen saver nothing else, no start menu, no icons, no nothing. I can get Task manager but that doesn’t tell me a lot. And the other m/c can't see it on the network.

So in with the XP disc, tell it to repair it, does that, reboots, still the same, ok fire up recovery console, aggggghhhhhhhh it wants an administrator password, never had one, never set one, bl£$%dy XP.

Right start up in safe mode with command prompt, its back to DOS Shocked

alter the passwords and think System restore, magic, but theirs no restores, why?? Apparently some programs, spybot being one can stop system restore from working, wonderful what you can find when you google. Pity XP doesn’t tell you its been stopped from working.

why not copy browseui.dll from the XP disc, so stick in another m/c and search for it, no go, search again without .dll found it “windows\system32\i386\” they changed the extension to .dl_ why???? Right stick it on a floppy and rename it. Snag the crashed m/c says cyclic redundancy check failed when I try to access the A drive ok, back to safe mode and find it on the cd, copy it and rename it, trying to remember the correct syntax arrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh. All done, just reboot. (who can remember the correct syntax for change directory, copy and rename, no cheating, answer on a post card please)

Screen says browseui.dll is not an image file so that’s a no go then, alright reload windows! If you continue, my documents folder will be wiped! What sort of operating system wipes the my documents folder. without any option to back it up!!!! So it’s windows2 then. I then get a message it’s not a good idea to have two operating systems on the same partition bo%$£ks go ahead and install it anyway, after about an hour I am informed that windows XP the wonderful operating system from Microsoft is now ready to go.

But its not, nearly blank screen just the start menu and the waste bin nothing else, so its Start=programs don’t have any???? I try Start=control panel no disc shown, after buggering about I find the C drive, what about copying browseui.dll from windows2 to the first install, do that reboot and it works. Laughing

Only took 4 hours. Crying or Very sad

Now how do I get rid of windows2? on booting up I get the option of two XP systems, If I simply delete the windows2 folder that won't stop that option coming up, any ideas.

Olley

Pusser

To repair XP, boot up on cd, let xp chunter along and when it gets to the first opportunity to press R to repair, don't. Carry on with install until another opportunity comes up to press R. This time press it. And off you go.

Also you could try reinstalling opera and then add\remove it.

You probably have not got an Administrator password so when it asks you for a password, press enter but this is only in DOS mode. In safe mode it the user has admin rights then logging in with Admin does not make much difference in the scale of things.

Best of luck. Sounds like you need it. Very Happy

TinaGlenn · Charity Rep

If you can get to your information now to be able to back it up, I would back up everything and then re format the hard drive and start from scratch.

But that is just me, no patience to keep messing about with computers when they don't want to play!

We had a similar problem on daughters laptop, she had picked up some virus and one of her "genius" uni mates had helpfully deleted one of the dll operating files trying to get rid of it for her.
luckily she has everything backed up on cdroms so wasn't a major catastrophe. reformatted reloaded and now all fine again... till the next time Rolling Eyes

Tina

Pusser

Sorry. didn't read all your post.

In explorer go to C:\ (root) directory and edit Boot.ini

If you cannot see this, go into Win explorer, Tools, FOlder options, View and untick hidden system files and tick show extension.

You will see two lines probably at the bottom both which ends in \fastdetect.

But make a copy of the file first and call it something different i.e. boot.txt

The last line with fastdetect is normally the latest one but not always hence the need for a backup file and you need to delete one of these lines. I would be tempted to try the first one first and if this does not work then delete Boot.ini, rename your boot.txt to boot.ini and then things will be OK. If not, you know where to send hate mail. Sad

Bit like making safe a bomb. Blue wire, red wire. tricky.

klubnomad

Hi

To get rid of the option for which system to start up, go to Control Panel, System, advanced and choose Startup and Recovery. In there you will see the menu that asks what system to use. Edit it to remove - delete - the option - windows2 - you dont want.

Dave

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