I recently started to experience a couple of unusual problems that I haven't experienced before. Besides being slow, the most frustrating problem is that upon start and boot up, everything seems to be loading fine. I get the normal looking screen with my shortcuts and the task bar ok, but my mouse cursor remains with an hourglass and doesn't allow me to click on anything. Computer is just inactive. When I hit cntl-alt-del to see what is running, I see that the systray did not load. Have to power down, and then power up to reboot. When I do, then everything comes back, systray loads ok, and I can operate my computer normally.

This systray not loading problem now occurs quite frequently. Anyone have any suggestions on how I might correct this problem, and explain what is happening, and why?

richie

I found this article at Microsoft, I hope it helps.

Thanks. I read the article, and will try it to see if it works to correct this problem. However what ever the reason, this problem of not completely loading and leaving me with a non-responsive, hung computer seems to be getting worse. This morning, I experienced a hang on start-up of my computer, again. Only this time Explorer was not responding, and there was no indication of the Systray at all. Just very frustrating. Maybe, when I take the steps to change the registry entries as suggested in the article these problems will go away. Hope so...

richie


Added:

The article says that it applies only to Windows 98 computers, and doe not list ME. I learned earlier that ME is effectively a 98 computer and that they are the same, but when I went to the registries entries suggested they each had a hexadecimal entry"e", or equivalent decimal "14", entered, and not the entries shown in the article. So I didn't change anything. Still have the questions about how to correct this problem.

richie

Well Richie you appear to be having a few problems with your WinME, this is the third post.

As I suggested in your Explorer problem first of all Run: Msconfig to see if Systray in listed in the Startup tab. If it is then Systray.exe could be missing in your system, it should be in your Windows\System folder.

You can check if it starts on Windows startup, the same location as in the Explorer topic.

To put it back in the registry Run: Regedit goto

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Right-click on a blank area on the right-hand pain and select New String Value and name it SystemTray. Now double-click on SystemTray and add SysTray.Exe into the Value data and click OK.

Do a restart and see what happens.

Right now, to me, that's an understatement. I've never experienced such problems before. But now it seems a new problem arises everytime I boot up. See my messae about my shortcut Icons for Excel data files.

I checked for the systray.exe and found that it's on the Startup Tab and in the Window\System folder. Also found that the Systray.exe in also in the registry.

My brother, who built this machine for me back in 2000, indicates that he thinks the problems that I am having are caused by the case; and if I get a new ATX case, and transfer all of the internal hardware to the new case, than my problems should be solved. But I'm beginning to suspect that I am having an available memory problem that is causing some file corruption. Does that sound logical?

Let me know what you think? And any Further suggeations would be a great help to me.

Richie

Edit additional comment...
I just remembered that ME has a "Restore" function. Tried that, and restored to a point about a week ago before I started having all these problems. Success. Everything is back to normal, and I hope that it stays that way. If no more similar problems reappear over the next few week, then I'll assume that this restore was effective in correcting my problem.

richie

Maybe Systray.exe is corrupt is some way.

You could try running SFC.exe (System File Checker) in the Win\Sys folder. This should check your important system files. If it finds suspect ones then you will need WinME CD to replace the files.

The restore only restores the registry not the files you have installed.

Hello Keith, I tried to find in the win\sys Folder but didn't find a Win\sys folder on my computer. I looked in my Windows ME "C:|Windows" folder. Where's it supposed to be again?

richie

When I say Win\Sys I mean Windows\System, sorry richie for the abbreviation. I'm a programmer so when we talk about folders we just say Win\Sys meaning the Windows\System folder or in WinNT its Windows\System32 or WinNT\System32.

Anyway you can Run: SFC.exe that will run that program because the Windows\System is in the Windows path the same as Windows is. What I mean by Windows path is any exe file in Windows or Windows\System can be run using just the filename e.g. Calc.exe will run the Calculator without specifying where this file is. Calc.exe is in the Windows folder on Win9x and Windows\System32 on WinNT.