Conference noted::windows95

2811.0. "MMSYSTEM.DLL and W95B reinstall ..." by MARVIN::CARLINI () Fri Feb 21 1997 19:08

    I have been trying to help some friends with their new W95 P133 system,
    so far without too much luck.
    
    The symptoms are that activating certain programs (e.g. Display under
    control panel -> settings) throws up an error box the first time after
    a reboot and just does nothing on subsequent attempts (until another
    reboot).
    
    The affected items are Display, CD Player and a few of their CD-ROMs.
    When the error box appears, clicking on Details gives some information:
    usually RUNDLL32.EXE has caused an exception in MMSYSTEM.DLL; sometimes
    LAUNCH.EXE or some other prog has caused the exception, but it always
    seems to be in MMSYSTEM.DLL.
    
    In addition, the SoundBlaster (AWE32 I think) does not work under W95
    (e.g. won't play a .WAV file, no W95 startup sounds, no sound from
    Microsoft Musical Instruments or Encarta 97 CDs) but will work when
    running DOS games (e.g. Wacky Wheels) in a DOS session under W95; so
    the hardware seems to be OK.
    
    This all started some weeks ago when somehow (they don't know exactly
    how) their BIOS settings changed (they know because the boot-up
    password vanished) and a LOCK command appeared in AUTOEXEC.BAT. I reset
    the BIOS to defaults and cleared up AUTOEXEC.BAT (and a DOS=SINGLE line
    which had appeared in CONFIG.SYS) and their machine worked again.
    At the time we came to the conclusion that a combination of an attempt
    to install an old DOS game (ZOOL) and two inquisitive youngsters could
    explain both the BIOS and AUTOEXEC.BAT/CONFIG.SYS problems.
    
    The SoundBlaster and other problems have probably been there since
    then, but have only been noticed in the last few days.
    
    They are running W95B, I have tried replacing their MMSYSTEM.DLL and
    RUN32DLL.EXE with those files from my system (which is running straight
    W95) and although nothing fell apart, nothing got better either.
    
    I have tried reconfiguring W95 (control panel->add programs->windows
    setup) and add new hardware but this has not helped with either
    problem.
    
    I would now try to reinstall W95 from scratch while attempting to
    preserve the other software on their machine, but I am a little
    hesitant because I have read that W95B insists on a clean install and
    will not do an upgrade. 
    
    What is the best way to proceed here? If I can track down their CDROM
    driver and get to boot DOS [V7 W95] from a floppy and can access their
    CDROM, can I blow away most of the WINDOWS directory (first preserving
    the INI files and the registry) and then do a W95 install? Will this
    work?
    
    Can I just blow away the suspect files (MMSYSTEM.DLL and friends) and
    expect W95 to only reinstall those? Does it check each file
    individually or does it just check for a few key files in each group?
    
    Any advice appreciated,
    
    Antonio

    MMSYSTEM seems very familiar to me.  I almost think it happened when I
    messed up the installation of (or needed updated versions of) either my
    Diamond display driver or my sound card (Gravis Ultrasound) driver. 
    You might possibly try re-installing the sound card driver, I suppose
    and/or the video driver.
    
    Burns (who might also be remembering wrong)

    I just realised that I forgot to follow up.
    
    Reinstalling the sound driver made no difference. Reinstalling the
    video driver could not be done (the problem got in the way).
    
    I bit the bullet and tried a re-install of W95b and that went smoothly
    and cured the problem. (I explicitly told it to overwrite the sound and
    video drivers on the disk with the older ones from the CD).
    
    Antonio