HELP!!! Installation messed up everything

Just downloaded and installed MRU Blaster today thinking it would clean out some of the items in the Pop-up Stopper "Personal Browser History." Not only are those things still there, but it messed up a whole bunch of things on my computer.

First thing I noticed was that most all of the Desktop Icons were gone (with the exception of the few that I think came with the system).

On the START BUTTON:

I can open the Control Panel, but anything I click on in there gives me a message saying "cannot find the file C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE (or one of its components)."

The Help function doesn't work at all saying "The WINHEL.EXE file may be missing or damaged."

RUN--typing in several different programs won't work either. For example: "Cannot find the file REGEDIT (or one of its components). Make sure the path and filename are correct and all required libraries are available."

Also I had the Clipboard Viewer at the top of the Start Button and can't access it now. I get a window "Missing Shortcut" saying "The item CLIPBRD.EXE that this shortcut refers to ahs been changed or moved."

Everything seemed to be okay before downloading and installing MRU Blaster this morning. I left all the check marks as they were; but immediately after running the program, all these things went wrong.

I've not downloaded anything else recently. I think I would rather have a bunch of items in the Browser History than have this BIG MESS!!!

There may be other problems that I'm not even aware of yet....but for now...can these things be reversed? Or is there anything I can do to get things running properly again

Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!

 

Thanks for your prompt response.

I am running Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 5.50

 

Question #1)
Did you enable the Temporary Internet File Cleaner? If so, can you try adding a few random icons and using that plugin (the IE Temporary Internet File Cleaner) again to see if you can reproduce the problem?

If yes, you may need to simply disable that plugin (I've had a few reports of sporadic problems with it, but have been unable to reproduce them at all - your operating system, Windows 95, may be one factor).

MRU-Blaster just cleans out various MRU lists in the registry, and it shouldn't even be possible for it to delete or corrupt that file. Can you search for that file on your system and see if it is actually there?

Again, the same thing I mentioned above applies here. MRU-Blaster simply shouldn't be able to touch that file at all. Could you try searching your system for that too? (Also, try a search for WINHELP.EXE).

Again, could you try searching for REGEDIT.exe and CLIPBRD.EXE on your system? Thanks in advance.

Please search for the files mentioned above, and let me know if they are anywhere on your system, or even in the correct places.

Again, MRU-Blaster shouldn't be able to cause those problems. It is possible that the IE Temporary Internet File Cleaner plug-in caused those issues, but I can't see how at the moment. If you enabled that extra function, would you mind starting up MRU-Blaster, going to the IE Temporary Internet File Cleaner screen, and copy & pasting exactly what's displayed in the "Detected Local Path to IE Temporary Internet Files Folder" textbox?

Thanks in advance,

-Javacool

 

Javacool,

Thanks for your prompt reply. I'm slow in getting back to you because my computer has developed additional problems. and I'm having to use a friend's computer.

First to answer your questions:
By "Temporary Internet File Cleaner plug-in" I'm assuming you're referring to the extra screen of MRU Blaster? I think the other one was "Cookies" because I do remember putting some into the exclude section.
It's difficult to remember your program because I only used it the once. And now I can't get back to it to try to duplicate the problem.

Shortly after my 1:00pm post, I went off-line and was using outlook express to read some email when the screen froze up. After restarting, windows would't load. Some of the messages on the screen....
1) "The following file is missing or corrupted:
C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS"
2) "The following file is missing or corrupted:
C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS"
3) "Warning: the high memory area (HMA) is not available"
4) "Additional low memory (below 640K0 will be used instead"
5) "Loading NAVDX",,,,,,,,(proceeded to scan Memory, Master Boot Records, Boot Record, and files)...."DONE"
6) "Cannot find WIN>COM, unable to continue loading Windows"

I used the Norton Anti-Virus Rescue disks which scanned the same items as in #5 above (program files only) and the Summary reported " No viruses found"
However, Windows still would not load.

The computer starts in DOS but that's as far as I can get. I looked over several directories and didn't see the various files it mentioned as missing/corrupted.

The directory in C:\ shows an AUTOEXEC.LS (?) around the time of getting the MRU Blaster Program.
Then around the time that windows would't load, there's an AUTOEXEC.000 and a CONFIG.000 followed later that same day with the normal AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS

The last two were different than all the previous ones, so I changed them to duplicate the previous setting; however, the problem still remains.

This is the first time that something like this has happened so I have no experience dealing with this and just don't have a clue as to how to proceed.

Since the problems happened immediately after running MRU Blaster, it appears to be the cause. But even if it's not, do you have any suggestions on how to get thing back to normal

I will be at this computer for a while longer and will check back for your response. If no reply before I leave, it might be a day or two before I have access to this or another computer---so don't take a slow reply form me as dis-interest......I AM DESPERATE!!!

Thanks in advance for your time and patience.

rmtnlady


Any further suggestions?

 

I'm wondering if maybe those files are still there on my computer but MRU maybe just re-directed the pointers to them. Can I search using DOS?

Also if the config.sys and autoexec.bat were changed in the installation process, could I edit those files? Maybe include something that will let DOS find those files

If anybody has any insight or suggestions, please let me know soon. Thanks in advance.

 

I downloaded this program 3 days ago and I have had the very exact same problem happen to my computer.

I lost all of the same files and couldn't reload anything but DOS.

I have been the last 3 days reprogramming my computer because of this program.

I was surprised about this because I have been using spyware blaster for quite some time now and I have been extreemly pleased with the job it does. In fact, I am reinstalling spywareblaster now but I will not reinstall MRU Blaster on my computer again.

I am using Windows 98 1st edition on my comp.

God Bless Y'all from Texas

 

I'm not sure why this happened at all.

I can't reproduce anything similar, no matter how hard I try.

Was there anything strange about how your computer was set up? i.e. A strange path to the Windows directory, or anything out-of-the-ordinary that you can think of?

Also, did you enable the Temporary Internet File Cleaner plugin? If so, do you recall if you enabled the secure deletion option? TIA!

Thanks in advance,

-Javacool

 

You sent this to me by email:

Yes I did activate Cookie Blaster & IE Temporary Internet File Cleaner
Yes I Did press the "Clean Now" button to clean everything

I think I did enable the secure deletion function?

There was nothing about my comp that was altered in any way from its OEM state except for regiular updates fom Microsoft.

All I know is that it moved deleted or God only knows what it did with all of my system files out of windows folder to the controle panel to the start button, None of my system tools were availiable & most of my other programs except Microsoft Outlook Express and I can't tell you where it moved them to.

The explorer froze and crashed before I could save any of my emails or any othr file I needed.

The sinerio that the man who started this thread told you happened to his Windows 95 happened almost word for word with my Windows 98

Contact me if you need to know more either here or by email. email is faster

God Bless Y'all from Texas,
Frank Shrum

 

Nighthawk,

I also used Spyware Blaster. Also Spybot S&D and Hijack This. Something I had downloaded in the past ( I think it was one of the above programs) caused a minor problem in that all my Desktop Icons were rearranged...I think it was to the automatic settings...I just used click and drag to put them back in the order I preferred.

When you say you have been reprogramming your computer for the last 3 days, could you tell me what you are doing to correct this?

I'm not very computer savy so any details you could give me would be very helpful. I have used DOS in the past but forgot a lot of it. I did drag out my old (1988?) DOS manual and it's a good source of info. but I'm leary to just dive in and try stuff on my own.

Were you able to recover all your files....such as Outlook Express emails, Address Book, word processing files and spreadsheets

Please fill me in on your results?

Thanks so much for your input...........rmtnlady

 

Javacool,

I did use the two plug-ins and excluded some of the cookies that I use on a regular basis. Other than that, I used the defaults that were included when I downloaded the program.

I don't recall if I enabled the "secure deletion option." But I did leave all the check marks as there were when I ran the program.

There's nothing strange that I know of in how windows was set up. In Windows Explorer, the Windows folder was located directly below the C:\ folder (that is, it was not in another sub-folder or sub-directory). Even now in DOS, I can get a directory of C:\Windows which shows some other directories and several files; however, there are not any .SYS files in there.

I also tried to start Windows in "Safe Mode" and got the messages:

"Windows is bypassing your startup files.

The following file is missing or corrupted:

C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\DBLBUFF.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS"

Is there a way to reinstall windows? Or does that reformat my hard drive and wipe-out everything

Thanks for any help you or any of the experts here can provide.

Rmtnlady

 

Hi Frank,

First of all--correction, I'm a woman!!! Guess I should have filled out a profile (will do that now).

Anyway, were you able to locate your missing files? And were you able to recover your emails in OutLook Express?
Anything you can fill me in on will be appreciated.

Thanks.......Rmtnlady

 

Doesn't anyone on this site have any answers as to how I can get rid of the mess on my computer and get it up and runiing again?

Thanks for any input at all

 

I still have been unable to reproduce the problem at the moment, so I'm still not completely sure about what happened to your system (i.e. what happened to all the files, what files seem to be missing - and there could be hundreds, etc.).

Reinstalling Windows might be your best option, but I'm not sure if the Windows 95 setup gives you an option to simply upgrade/reinstall Windows without overwriting all of your old files (which I'm sure you'd prefer to prevent, if at all possible). That also all depends on whether or not your computer manufacturer provided a Windows 95 setup disk or a "restore" disk of some sort.

I'll keep looking for answers.

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

Im not 100% on this but where did you guys download the file from?

It sounds like a virus (can’t remember the name of it) but it changes the file associations with exe files. And mucks around with sys file as well.

Did you get the setup for mru blaster from a legit site?
Do you have an up to date virus scanner.

Hope that helps

 

Javacool,

I have a Windows 95 CD-ROM and a Windows 95 (floppy) Installation Disk

 

cjsewell,

I believe I downloaded MRU Blaster from this site.

Something I noticed the few days before installing MRU Blaster were two new files in the startup files:
INFWIN and SAFESEARCH.

I did a search in DOS and these are now appearing on my computer under C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM

I don't know where these came from. Could they maybe be the cause of the problem?

 

I had a similar problem today whilst using windows 98
and my machine checks out free from viruses and trojans.

The temporary internet files plug-in took much longer than usual and I then found that it had deleted some 300 files from my C:\Windows folder.

Having a dual boot machine it was easy to see this.

I have some other clean-up tools and I suspect that the temporary internet files folder was either totally empty or even deleted - which normally does not matter as Windows rebuilds it.

This appears to have confused the plug-in which then moved up a level in the path C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files and cleared out what it found there.

 

i to have a 98 system and this has happened this afternoon.

Installed last night and all seemed well. After selecting all plugins etc. rebooted unit and all was fine. Then after doing other things when i closed down all open windows, all but 5 icons were gone.

I was able to replace them no problem. Tried rebooting and running plugins to see if icons would vaporize again. all ok

I backedup, thank god, went to bed.

Today all seemed fine and then noticed that windows media player wouldn't run some clips from news site.

I then removed media player from add/remove and rebooted. no problem. Then reinstalled from saved download and while rebooting to finish install, i get cannot find win.com.

Second boot i get the no himen etc. that the original poster had.

Fortunately i have a second bootable drive with my backup and a restore of windows folder was needed.

It replaced about 288 windows files from the windows directory only. I have a list saved of files restored if you are interested. It seems that all 'files' in the windows folder were toasted except the ones that windows was trying to use.

I had rebooted several times this moring before the problem occured. Also, just before when i went into add/remove to take out media player i got an error saying rundll32.exe not found. I replaced it with SFC and the windows disk. Then did the removal of WMP 7.1, reboot , reinstall 7.1, reboot then nothing ,nil, noughta, zilch toast.

Not sure if any of this is of help to you but in the meantime i have remved the mrublaster from my system.

 

It's actually a great help, and I believe I've found out how to fix this sporadic problem for the next database update (also a long time in coming).

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

Looking forward to the update.

Fyi: i wanted to let you know that i found the problem for the player at news sites, and the player problem was already there and was unrelated to the mrublaster. A chair/keyboard interface problem.

A few days before, i had updated my spybot beta 1.3. It turned out that the hosts files got updated and was blocking an ad from doubleclick that was trying to run prior to the news clip and was locking up the player. Just hadn't got around to running any clips.

Keep up the good work on your utilities!

 

javacool,

Hi, I wrote a while back about not being able to get DocScrubber to work on my machine: win98, IE6SP1, Office97, all with udates.

Well, I've also had the MRU blaster problem described in this thread. Here are some details about my situation which I hope may be useful for you regarding a future update to the MRU Blaster program:

1) I used MRU Blaster at every startup for many months with no problem. Secure deletion of Temporary Internet Files & Cookies enabled. All MRUs selected except stream history. Loved the program, especially because it deletes the "index.dat" files.

2) Sporadic problems (including but not limited to the non-functioning DocScrubber) lead me to do a clean reinstall of OS, IE, and all programs. Procedure: I completely cleaned system of virii, trojans (had 2 infected files), and spyware. Since reformatting was not an option, I renamed win.com, autoexec.bat, config.sys, Windows & Program files folders in DOS, then ran win98 setup to get a new registry. Then I began to reinstall other programs, including MRU Blaster from the same installation file used before.

3) MRU Blaster, configured as mentioned above, ate my OS - in other words, it securely deleted files not in use from the Windows folder (rundll32.exe, regedit.exe, etc.). This was not as great a tragedy as it might have been: I just reinstalled as per above (and thankfully, I'd not restored lots of my customizations yet so I didn't lose as much time as I might have done). I came & read this thread & decided to wait for a new version of MRU Blaster before using the program.

4) After this reinstall, I ended up with a different problem that took a fair amount of work to resolve. Briefly, I discovered that, in my installation, IE was no longer the program browsing the web, but instead explorer.exe was connecting underneath IE, as it were. The fix involved reinstalling win98 cleanly, then using the IEradicator tool to remove IE 4, installing win98 updates, then installing IE6SP1 + updates, in that order. Now my Kerio 2.1.5 reports that IE is behaving as the default browser again. And other problems - the ones that led me to reinstall in the first place - all were fixed (although I've yet to try DocScrubber).

5) After all of that and getting the rest of my programs & customizations set up, I decided to give MRU Blaster another try. Consider it an experiment for the sake of reproducing the problem, and I also thought that if MRU Blaster worked it would give me more evidence that my new installation was functioning correctly.

So, I reinstalled MRU Blaster from the same file I'd used when the program worked properly. I ran it without the plug-ins, no problem. I ran it with the plug-ins, and, once again, it deleted my OS files. However, this time, I'd saved a copy of everything and so was able to restore with no real hassles.

The Temporary Internet Files folder was present and not-empty before the last use of the program. I did NOT enable secure deletion but I was not able to recover the deleted files from within Win98 - had to use my backup.

My only thoughts about the possible cause concern the fact that I have most of my old OS folder - the one I renamed in DOS at the beginning of the reinstall process - stored in the Recycle Bin for the time being (minus the previously-mentioned infected files, of course). I'm hanging on to it temporarily just in case I discover that I've forgotten something in the reinstall. Because there is an old, empty, Temporary Internet Files folder in the old OS folder, could this have someow "confused" MRU Blaster? If I had more time, I might restore the folder, zip it up, and put it back in the Recycle Bin to see if that would change anything.

So maybe this information will be of some use to you in addressing the problem that some users have had with MRU Blaster. Even if it seems to happen sporadically and only with legacy or near-legacy OS's (win95 & win98 respectively), it is quite dramatic and an unfortunate feature of an otherwise super program that I hope to be able to use again one day.

pollux