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March 23, 2008

AnalogX DLLArchive

I ran some shareware utility called AnalogX DLLArchive. Big mistake. I thought that I'd be clever and improve the performance of my PC. Instead, I'm left wondering what the h3ll went wrong and trying to decide if it wouldn't be easier to just re-install the O/S. I tried undoing the DLL archive, but this was only partially successful. Then, I tried doing a System Restore, but no dice. I can't get system restore to work, even though it's turned on for all drives and the service is running. My Remote Desktop quit working. It actually disappeared so that when I right-clicked on My Computer, there was no longer a "remote" tab at all. This link got my Remote access tab to reappear.

This problem is likely caused by a missing or corrupt DLL. You will need access to the install files for Windows XP. You will then need to perform the following while having access to the install files.

1. Click START–>RUN

2. Type EXPAND x:\I386\REMOTEPG.DL_ -R C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
x is the drive letter for where your Windows XP install files are located"

I'm going to try to keep a running list of files I'm restoring here using this method:
EXPAND x:\I386\ocgen.dll -R C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
EXPAND x:\I386\msgrocm.dll -R C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32

Now, I'm trying to get my System Restore working. System Restore runs the program:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Restore>rstrui.exe

The program is there, but for some reason, when I run it, it pretty much does nothing at all. No error message or anything. This guy says to go into the registry and delete some entries. This other guy says to use the Recovery Console to fix the problem.

I would try this solution, but I'm concerned that I'll lose all of my checkpoints.

This guy seems to have the same problem that I have. Namely, that rstrui.exe does nothing.

This guy says to reboot in safe mode and run it from the command prompt. Microsoft seems to agree that this is possible.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that I can't reboot my PC in the Safe mode. Don't know why but it doesn't work. Doh! So, I finally decided to dig out my XP install CD and boot from the WinXP install cd to get to the recovery console.

I dug around and found some documentation that said instead of going into the Recovery Console, I should try to repair the existing installation. That didn't work, and I finally got pissed off enough that I just ripped the drive out and dug around in my unimaginable technology close until I found a brand new hard drive still sealed in the wrapper with silicon packaging. Then I shoved in the new (replacement) drive and prepared to partition and format the drive, and then do a clean install of XP SP2.

This Microsoft article talks about creating a partition and formatting the drive prior to reinstalling XP.

So, I created a 38 gig partition. It holds out about 8 megs automatically for XP for some reason. Then I formatted the partition as "NTFS" (not "NTFS Quick") because I want it to run CHKDSK for me.

On the other hand, I had good success running this Free Registry Cleaner utility.