Profile problems

[madkayak]

Hi
When a user loggs onto a win98 machine she gets an Explorer error referring to invalid page faults. This only happen when she loggs onto this particular machine. No other users get this problem on this machine. i have tried deleting her user from the list but when she loggs on again and it sets up her profile the exact same thing happens. From this I would say that it is profile related, but how do I fix it?

Thanks
Sandy

 

[BradSQLGuy]

Invalid page faults are very difficult to centralize and find the exact cause. If you can replicate the error message and post it I can help you research to find what could be causing this. More detail will definately help. I don't think it is her logon that is causing this...it is possibly an application that is supposed to load when she logs into that machine. This is what causes an Invalid page fault - A program uses memory (RAM) to store data. For example, when you load a document into Microsoft Word, large parts of the file you are editing take up space in RAM. As the program needs memory, it requests blocks of memory of specific sizes from the operating system. The program remembers the location of each block it allocates using a "pointer". If the program tries to write data to a location beyond the end of a memory block, or if the program gets confused and tries to access a non-existent block of memory using an invalid pointer, the operating system can see that happening and it generates a "page fault" or a "segmentation fault". The operating system shuts down the program because the program obviously does not know what it is doing.

 

[MISAdmin]

Does the Invalid Page Fault force you to shutdown? Or can you get to the users desktop? If you can get to teh desktop, you could run msconfig to choose "selective startup" and try disabling the config.sys/autoexec or system.ini/win.ini from loading for this user and then troubleshooting from there.

You say it's just this users profile. How many other profiles are there on this machine? Have you removed things from this users Startup group that might be different than other users?

What if you create a new profile under a different name and login as that new profile... does it have a problem? I guess I'm trying to figure out here if it is related to just this persons profile or any new profile that gets created.

Besides just deleting her from the user list in Control Panel/Users, you should also go and delete her user folder under Documents and Settings and remove her .PWL file under the Windows Directory. Then try recreating her profile again... that should definately give you a clean slate.

 

[BradSQLGuy]

MISAdmin has alot of good suggestions for you to try. Just remember to make double sure you are deleting HER .pwl or you could wipe out everyones password.

 

[madkayak]

Thanks for the suggestions.
So far I have deleted her profile and everything associated with it. Also i have removed it from the registry. Then I tried to get her to log on again and this time the error that came up at least gave me the module that is causing the error. It referred to an invalid page fault involving the kernel32.dll.

No other users that log onto that machine have any problems. There are about 6 other profiles on the machine.

The reason why I suspect it has something to do with her profile is that her main computer was upgraded to W2k Pro from WinNT 4 workstation. And from then on she hasn't been able to get onto this Win98 lab computer. Also I found that she wasn't able to view pictures either with photeditor(from her main computer), so there have definately been some strange things happening on her profile.

I can't get onto the desktop at all, it locks the system down completely. Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't work either and reset is necessary.

No software has been loaded on this machine at all to cause this, and no settings have been changed either.

Stumpted
Sandy

 

[MISAdmin]

Wait! I'm confused

I assumed from your description above that you were talking about a local profile running on a stand alone workstation with Win98 as the OS.

Now you mention that the users "main computer" is running W2K and this lab computer is running Win98...

Are you talking about Roaming Profiles setup through an NT Server or Local machine profiles. If you aren't using roaming profiles, the W2K workstation would have nothing to do with the Win98 station. Not as far as profiles go. They would both cache an individual profile on the individual machine.

If you are using a roaming profile, then although the user likely has a .PWL file and whatnot on the workstation in question, her actual profile would be stored on the NT Server under Documents and Settings (or another directory if you have specified a different place in User manager for Domains.

Does this user have trouble with her profile on her W2K workstation as well as the Win98 one??? Same trouble???

 

[BradSQLGuy]

I'm sorry if I sound redundant but all the error messages I can find that impact the kernel32.dll are being caused by another program file. Can you give me the complete error message and I can probably find a fix for you. If there are hex numbers just give me the first 5 of each series of numbers. This will really help me help you. =)