I have a computer in the field that will not retain an autoexec.bat. It is Windows 98SE and was originally cloned over two years ago from an image that is being used by many others. We are not sure when this began but we became aware of it only recently when we tried to run a program that depended on environment information that should have come from the path statement in the autoexec. Whenever windows shuts down, it seems to be deleting the autoexec.bat, not any other versions of autoexec such as .old or .bak, etc. It also does not delete any other batch files in the root such as brad.bat. It does not delete them when it is booting up. I have created the file from a dos boot and then rebooted to windows and it is there but as soon as I reboot from windows it is gone when we boot either to dos or windows. The symantec signature files are dated yesterday (Sept. 8\04) and there is no report of anything unusual. I have never seen this before but I have exhausted any possibilities that I can think of. Does anyone have any ideas? It would be a shame to have to ship this computer in and reclone it without finding the cause of the problem.
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windows deleting autoexec.bat?
- Thread starter kdeans
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marquitico
Technical User
I ran into this myself a few years ago, and I am sorry to say that it was so long ago that I cannot give you specifics, but the general outline went like this:
It was a WinME machine, my mother's laptop. I was installing software on it to recreate the configuration of an older desktop of hers, and some of the software came from Win3.11-era computing (an old WordPerfect, an old CORELDraw, that kind of thing). The install programs of these things required a reboot for all changes to take effect, because they made alterations to config.sys and autoexec.bat. After one of these, my autoexec.bat file disappeared, and it would keep disappearing if I put it back, just like yours.
I discovered that the install program left a small collection of files in a temporary location, including an exe file that was meant to run on bootup, complete the installation, delete all remaining odds and ends, and terminate itself. The time stamp on these little files corresponded to the time I initiated the install. I don't know what came over me, but I double-clicked the exe file not knowing what it was. It completed its housekeeping chores and exited, I had my autoexec.bat back, and that was the end of that.
Apparently WinME is different enough from Win3.11 that the programs could not complete their install routines after the required bootup. They had worked just fine on Win95.
So: installed anything new lately? Are you certain that the install succeeded? Any peculiar temp files hanging around (particularly executable files) that date to approx the time of the install?
Also: you mentioned autoexec.old files. Does the time stamp on these older autoexecs look familiar?
If this doesn't help, I hope it gives you ideas, at least. It feels like you have a running process (not necessarily viral) that keeps trying to complete, but is being interrupted at the same point repeatedly.
Best,
Mark ("marquitico")
It was a WinME machine, my mother's laptop. I was installing software on it to recreate the configuration of an older desktop of hers, and some of the software came from Win3.11-era computing (an old WordPerfect, an old CORELDraw, that kind of thing). The install programs of these things required a reboot for all changes to take effect, because they made alterations to config.sys and autoexec.bat. After one of these, my autoexec.bat file disappeared, and it would keep disappearing if I put it back, just like yours.
I discovered that the install program left a small collection of files in a temporary location, including an exe file that was meant to run on bootup, complete the installation, delete all remaining odds and ends, and terminate itself. The time stamp on these little files corresponded to the time I initiated the install. I don't know what came over me, but I double-clicked the exe file not knowing what it was. It completed its housekeeping chores and exited, I had my autoexec.bat back, and that was the end of that.
Apparently WinME is different enough from Win3.11 that the programs could not complete their install routines after the required bootup. They had worked just fine on Win95.
So: installed anything new lately? Are you certain that the install succeeded? Any peculiar temp files hanging around (particularly executable files) that date to approx the time of the install?
Also: you mentioned autoexec.old files. Does the time stamp on these older autoexecs look familiar?
If this doesn't help, I hope it gives you ideas, at least. It feels like you have a running process (not necessarily viral) that keeps trying to complete, but is being interrupted at the same point repeatedly.
Best,
Mark ("marquitico")
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