Bogus setup wizard at startup

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corngrower - 16 Sep 2005 06:09 GMT

My problem matches the one discussed 6/10/2005 on this forum, question posed
by Andrew Boone, replied to by Glenn Ventura, Bill Watt, Ben Myers. The
computer boots to the point of showing the desktop with no icons or taskbar,
a setup wizard window appears wanting my name, business, then I must accept
the license agreement, then it needs my product key. Windows 98se on my
machine came preloaded with recovery available on recovery CD issued with the
machine, no CD key. The first occurrence of this problem for me was May 2005.

I got to the point of restoring a previous registry to get around the
problem, and made a practice of backing up the registry every two weeks. The
setup wizard problem recurred a couple times during summer 2005 and was
handled by restoring a previous registry.

A week ago the problem recurred, every day, and now I have used all the
registry backups, can no longer avoid the setup wizard. The machine will not
boot in safe mode due to an explorer error. I can work from DOS to edit the
System.ini file, changing shell=explorer.exe to shell=progman.exe, then the
machine will boot in safe mode but not in normal mode. Program manager
offers fairly limited function, but enough to know Windows is functional.

My efforts to search for a solution lead me to this site and in going
through the pages found the June discussion which matches my problem. I have
dealt with most of the solutions proposed in that discussion, the exceptions
being related to software which my machine does not have..

I attempted to reload Windows using the recovery CD, the recovery program
locked the computer on three different attempts.

From safe mode using program mgr and notepad, I was able to load the
bootlog.txt file. It shows drivers loaded and devices initialized, but the
last four lines are odd.

[00156220] STARTING UNKNOWN (HTREE\RESERVED\0)
[00156220] STARTED UNKNOWN (HTREE\RESERVED\0)
[00156222] ENUMERATING UNKNOWN (HTREE\RESERVED\0)
[00156222] ENUMERATED UNKNOWN (HTREE\RESERVED\0)

So now I ask, what would be the next step?
Pete

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Ben Myers - 16 Sep 2005 17:02 GMT

Copy and paste the following text to Notepad and save it to a floppy as "a:\pv.reg".

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx\1]
"pv"="||start a:\\prcview.exe"
[end]

Then go to http://www.xmlsp.com/pview/prcview.htm and download Process Viewer.
Open the zip file and extract the files to the same floppy. Start the problem computer
in "Command Prompt", insert the floppy, type "regedit a:\pv.reg", then leave the floppy
in the drive and type "win" to start Windows. If Process Viewer starts along with setup,
it should show you the drive and path of the setup executable. You may have to use
"Alt-Tab" to switch between applications.

Ben

> My problem matches the one discussed 6/10/2005 on this forum, question posed
> by Andrew Boone, replied to by Glenn Ventura, Bill Watt, Ben Myers. The
[quoted text clipped - 35 lines]
> So now I ask, what would be the next step?
> Pete

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Don Phillipson - 16 Sep 2005 18:49 GMT

> My problem matches the one discussed 6/10/2005 on this forum, question posed
> by Andrew Boone, replied to by Glenn Ventura, Bill Watt, Ben Myers. The
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> I attempted to reload Windows using the recovery CD, the recovery program
> locked the computer on three different attempts.

1. Who created the recovery CD? This data might help.
2. Since you have no CD, we suppose you have written
down the Registry entries for ProductID and ProductKey
in case you need them.
3. What AV protection did you use?
4. How regularly do you DEL C:\temp\*.* and
DEL C:\windows\temp\*.* ? There may be traces there
of incompetently coded or incomplete installation processes,
that rerun unwanted software at boot. You would now lose nothing
by ensuring both these folders are totally empty.

Signature

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

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corngrower - 17 Sep 2005 03:10 GMT

Thanks Ben and Don for replies,

Regarding Ben's suggestion for process viewer, I carried out the procedures
but the viewer did not work. The installation wizard takes full control of
the computer prior to windows becoming functional, so the only choices
available are to do as it says or decline at which point the computer shuts
down, and I mean turns itself OFF. There is no taskbar, system tray, icons,
alt-tab does not work. The process viewer web page as I understood it
explained a utility which can be operated with Windows running, but I do not
have Windows running.

Regarding Don's notes, 1) the recovery CD was shipped with the
Hewlett-Packard 8693C computer in a case labelled by HP with the CD (actually
2 of them) labelled by HP
2)I do have the product ID and key recorded
3) AV protection I use Ad-aware
4) temp directories had not been cleared for 2 months

Your help is appreciated

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glee - 17 Sep 2005 05:23 GMT

Go here:
http://www.billsway.com/notes_public/
and download "ProdKey.bat"

From the notes in the batch file itself:
Add this file to startup floppy along with Find.exe
from the C:\Windows\Command folder,
and C:\WINDOWS\REGEDIT.EXE
Boot with startup floppy, then type "prodkey" (no quotes).

This will give you the Product key from your registry, which you can then enter in
the prompt when starting Windows.

Signature

Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

> Thanks Ben and Don for replies,
>
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
> Your help is appreciated

Reply to this Message

corngrower - 17 Sep 2005 15:06 GMT

Situation update,

Glenn wrote how to obtain the product key, so I did that, proceeded with a
"normal" startup, got to the installation wizard. Now this guy does not look
normal to me, font is not typical of Microsoft. Page one wants my name and
business, page two needs accept license agreement (which looks somewhat
generic), page three product key which I entered, page four says information
is being saved click finish, then it is DONE (took about 3 seconds) and exits
to Windows.

Now I have : Explorer has performed an illegal operation and will be shut
down. DETAILS - - invalid page fault in module Explorer.exe @ 0167:00401f31

Found article 293174 in knowledge base on Microsoft site which matches my
Explorer problem, carried out instructions changed to progman, got booted up
ran control appwiz.cpl, now I have Add/Remove Programs Properties, the
program list box is blank, the windows setup components box is blank, the
startup disk tab looks OK I did not try to make (another) disk.

So.............
The 293174 article ends with the observation ...."If both methods fail, you
may have to completely reinstall the Windows 98 operating system. It should
be noted that the reinstallation of Windows 98 may result in the loss of some
Windows configuration information and/or data"

Incidentally, I tried that a couple days ago using the HP recovery CD, the
recovery program offers 1)Format and Recover 2) Recover only 3)Exit. I chose
2 and the computer immediately froze, no hint that a process even began. Did
that two more times and concluded my efforts needed to be directed elsewhere.

Well, on the bright side, I do have program manager and file manager and
registry editor and system configuration utility, I suppose maybe more if I
dig...

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glee - 18 Sep 2005 02:56 GMT

Forget the methods in that article, and use this method to reinstall Internet
Explorer:

Recovering From a Failed Internet Explorer Upgrade in Windows 98:
http://www.cs.bsu.edu/~gjjones/administrivia/stories/2003/03/21/recoveringFromAF
ailedInternetExplorerUpgradeInWindows98.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/r5ba

Especially the section at the end (with some edits by me):

"If you still have boot problems after you reboot, you should use the command prompt
to edit the c:\windows\system.ini file. On the command line type: edit
c:\windows\system.ini

Once it is open, change the line shell=explorer.exe to shell=progman.exe. What you
are doing here is changing the default shell (that is having problems) from the
Windows Explorer to the old Windows Program Manager shell. Press Alt, F, S to save
the changes; then Alt, F, X to close.

"Reboot Windows. It should now successfully boot with no errors into an empty
Program Manager shell. Use the File | Run | Browse drop down menu selection to
browse to c:\program files\internet explorer (C:\Progra~1\Intern~1) or
C:\WINDOWS\Windows Update Setup Files (C:\Windows\Window~1) and launch ie5setup.exe
or ie6setup.exe (depending on what is there). (If neither of those files can be
found, you probably did not ever install IE from a download at Windows Update. In
that case, you will need to run ie6setup.exe from the CD you had installed from).
Do a Minimal-custom install and check all the Bold faced options. When the setup
program alerts you that these files are already installed, tell it to reinstall all
of the files.

When the Internet Explorer Setup program is done and reboots, hit the F8 key to
bring up a Boot Menu. Choose Command Prompt and boot to the command prompt. Once
there, type edit c:\windows\system.ini and, once it is open, change the line
shell=progman.exe back to shell=explorer.exe. Save and exit the file. You have now
set the shell back to the original value."

Signature

Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

> Situation update,
>
[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]
> registry editor and system configuration utility, I suppose maybe more if I
> dig...

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corngrower - 19 Sep 2005 02:40 GMT

Thanks for the suggestions. The three other users in this house have been
patient with me trying to get the problem fixed but I realized the time was
wearing thin. I found an article on the HP site telling how to get balky
recovery CD to work so tried that and it did work so I loaded windows 98se
over the top and got to a functional windows machine again. Haven't had to
reload too many programs so it hasn't been all bad. I will have to do some
more scanning to see how much junk is left hopefully avoid doing this again.

Thanks again for all you help, it is much appreciated.

Reply to this Message

Franc Zabkar - 19 Sep 2005 08:27 GMT

On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 19:10:02 -0700, "corngrower"
<corngrower@discussions.microsoft.com> put finger to keyboard and
composed:

>Thanks Ben and Don for replies,
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>explained a utility which can be operated with Windows running, but I do not
>have Windows running.

Try adding "MEM /C /P" or "MEM /D /P" to C:\autoexec.bat or to
C:\windows\winstart.bat, eg:

echo Processing autoexec/winstart.bat ...
mem /c /p
pause
mem /d /p
pause

or ...

echo Processing autoexec/winstart.bat > c:\proclist.txt
mem /c >> c:\proclist.txt
mem /d >> c:\proclist.txt

-- Franc Zabkar

Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

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Franc Zabkar - 19 Sep 2005 08:27 GMT

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:09:01 -0700, "corngrower"
<corngrower@discussions.microsoft.com> put finger to keyboard and
composed:

>From safe mode using program mgr and notepad, I was able to load the
>bootlog.txt file. It shows drivers loaded and devices initialized, but the
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>[00156222] ENUMERATING UNKNOWN (HTREE\RESERVED\0)
>[00156222] ENUMERATED UNKNOWN (HTREE\RESERVED\0)

FYI, this is usually not a malware issue:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/does.a.reference.to.htre
e.in.bootlog.txt.indicate.a.virus.html

-- Franc Zabkar

Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

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glee - 19 Sep 2005 15:12 GMT

Thanks for that link, Franc....nice little find. :-)

Signature

Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

> On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:09:01 -0700, "corngrower"
> <corngrower@discussions.microsoft.com> put finger to keyboard and
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> FYI, this is usually not a malware issue:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/does.a.reference.to.htre
e.in.bootlog.txt.indicate.a.virus.html

> -- Franc Zabkar
>
> Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

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