If you the windows is the problem.if you have the winxp disk. there is a feature in it where it erases all the system files and rewrite it with files from the cd.just insert the Cd and then restart and let me know what screen your getting.I've done this before but it's been a long time.

Scott,


so I guess the window cleaner prog worked!!
I love it...use it weekly!!



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 08-25-2003).]

First of all, MANY thanks to Gary, Claude, Andrea, Mike , Danb, and vic83, for sharing your advice.

Here's the latest update of my situation. I purchased and installed Ultra WinCleaner (as recommended by Traveling Easy) to remove corrupt, erroneous, or uneeded Windows registry files. Unfortunately, I found the WinCleaner utility to be overly aggressive, as it deleted 532 registry files. After that, I was no longer able to launch my email client: IncrediMail. WinCleaner also has a feature that allows you to selectively add/remove individual registries but even after I reinstalled all registry files with the name 'IncrediMail' in it , I still wasn't able to launch 'Incredi-Mail'. Thank goodness for Windows XP's 'system restore' feature which allowed me to revert back to the computer's settings before I had installed WinCleaner and it's removal of some obviously needed registry files.

In the meantime I have good news to report. For whatever reason , and which remains a mystery to me, I'm no longer experiencing computer startup problems or the HD error reports I'd gotten previously, and all the Norton Utility diagnositcs tests continue to report back that all my windows files & hard drives are error free and functioning properly. It's been 4 days now running good, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Funny thing now though is that I've still got those 532 windows registry files in my computer that WinCleaner wanted to delete. I just wish I knew how to to selectively figure out myself which ones are 'actually' needed or not.

Scott

Scott. I think you are running WinXP. In which case have you tried to RESTORE to a previous date when your PC was working fine ?.

START MENU
PROGRAMS
ACCESSORIES
SYSTEM TOOLS
SYSTEM RESTORE

I have used Ultra Win Cleaner for the past 4 months and I just let it delete what eve it finds....never had a problem.

Graham UK

[This message has been edited by Graham UK (edited 08-25-2003).]

Right.

Hi Graham. If I could only figure out which specific files mistakingly deleted by WinCleaner, are required by Incredimail to run, this would solve the problem. Unfortunately just reinstalling the registry files with 'Incredimail' in the name was not sufficient. Anyone have suggestions at this point?

In addition, I'm concerned now that some of the other 532 registry files 'WinCleaner' tagged for deletion might actually be needed to run other program on my PC as well. Anyone have any advice how I might be able to customize or tweak WinCleaner to not so over zealously remove files which are actually needed?

Scott

I'm no authoriy on Incredimail but from what you wrote it seems that you were able to restore your Incredimail to a working state using XP System Restore. If this is the case then you should be able to do the following.

1. Start incredimail and back up all your data (File/Data and Settings Transfer/Transfer To New Computer) Save the backup file somewhere external and safe!

2. Run Wincleaner and let it delete all those files (even the incredimail files).

3. Reinstall incredimail from the original CD and then restore your mail files from the backup file you made earlier(File/Data and Settings Transfer/Transfer From Old Computer).

If you have checked that the cable connecting the hard drive to the motherboard is securely in and you are still having these same problems I would get important files off that drive ASAP. That sort of behaviour often precedes complete drive failure at which point all your files are gone. Don't want to scare you but I also don't want you to lose files if my diagnosis is correct. It sounds like more than a registry problem to me.

Scott,
Start making a backup of all your known files. If you are confident of reinstall all your applications, reformat your hdd and reinstall everything. Try to avoid using too many third party utilities. It will give you more confusion than solving the problem. As a Desktop Support Engineer for many years, most of the problem I've encountered are between the keyboard and the chair. If you can afford to have 2 computers, I know you can, get a dedicated one for internet use and one for your home music production. Internet is the place where you can catch all those anomalies going on your systems.

Dan

Maybe you know this already: the cheapest and fastest way to backup is buying a 2nd hard drive and use a backup software (free on the net) that can compress it to a smaller file. I use TASKZIP which is free and backs up all my important files everynight. However, to back up the operating system, I use the NORTON GHOST (not free but cheap) and it does that marvelously and quickly. But if you have XP maybe you don't need this since they have restore function.

Chris, Nigel, Danb, and Lukitoh:

Many thanks to all of you for your excellent advice. I agree that keeping your hard drive backed up (and 'to current date') essential.

I will now be definitely purchasing Norton Ghost (or similar product). It appears the HUGE advantage to Norton Ghost is that, because it saves an exact duplicate image of your entire exisiting hard drive, this will enable you (in the event of a hd crash) to MUCH MUCH MORE quickly get everything which was on your original hd, loaded on to a new hard drive, avoiding the necessity of reinstalling everything from scratch again (Windows XP, applications programs, app updates, etc). This would save hours, days, or perhaps weeks of work having to re-install every one of your software programs one by one, as well as having to locate/download 'one by one' the application updaters for each of the associated programs as well.

It's apparent to me now, that unless you backup your entire hard drive using Norton Ghost (or similar 'disk image' software), that there's no need to backup anything except for: user 'document files' & the original 'application installers'. I would assume that there's no benefit to backing up individual Windows XP System files or the installed Applications files located in the 'Program Files' folders, as these can only really be successfully reinstalled by re-launching the orginal application's 'installer' programs, right?

Thanks again in advance for feedback and clarification of this.

Scott