PCPowerGuide.com » Runtime

.NET Runtime Error

donna — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:32:50 +0000

The .NET framework is a software architecture that is used by Microsoft to allow programmers to build applications and other services that can run on the Microsoft .NET technology suite. Since its initial release there have been several versions of .NET released. The suite has three major parts:

ASP.net
Common Runtime Language
Framework Class Library

What is a .NET Runtime Error?

These errors can be caused by several different problems. In all cases there are caused by problems in the windows registry. Some of the more common causes are:

Bad or incomplete program installation
Bad or incomplete program uninstall and deletion
Viruses and malware
Application conflicts

No matter the cause, you usually have to reboot the computer to make it go away. The problem lies in the fact that it will reoccur unless you actually fix the problem. You will usually get an error message like the one below.

How to fix a .NET Runtime Error

Since each of the most common cause of the .NET runtime errors cause changes in the registry.

For example:

A Bad or incomplete program installation – all installations will add or delete new registry keys. Most people do not do an uninstall when the installation did not work in the first place. The problem is that the new stuff written to the windows registry is still there even though no application is using it.

Bad or incomplete program uninstall and deletion – the same thing is true in this situation. Even though you have uninstalled the program and deleted any files that belong to it, most uninstall programs leave registry entries behind that will eventually cause problems and sometimes even program conflicts.

Viruses and malware – these malicious programs are designed to cause problem in your registry and exist only to destroy or incapacitate your computer.

Application conflicts – some conflicts are caused by the applications just being incompatible with each other which means that one of the software programmers did not follow Microsoft’s guidelines for how to write programs for windows.

The best way to fix this kind of error is to do a complete cleaning of the windows registry. You can do that manually but unless you are an expert on the windows registry, I don’t recommend doing it that way.

The best solution is to use a good registry to repair your windows registry. There are both free and commercial registry cleaner programs available. The paid ones are usually more reliable, easier to use and have more features. Most of the companies will let you do a free scan to see if your registry needs cleaning.

Cleaning your windows registry is like changing the oil in your car. It is routine maintenance that should be done periodically.

Data Corruption When Writing to USB Hard Drives!

donna — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 03:01:50 +0000

As more and more people are using external USB hard drives, this is becoming a more common problem. I personally use a Western Digital Passport 320 GB USB drive for all of my important files. I do keep a backup of all of them on the hard drive of my desktop computer as well.

I keep have unpredictable problems with data corruption when I modify, create and save files at work. We have no dedicated computers on the job so I cannot save a copy to the hard disk there. When a file doesn’t save or is corrupted, I lose the work permanently. Sometimes you will get the following error message.

But, at other times, you don’t know that there is a problem until you try to open the file on another machine.

Common Causes for Delayed Write Errors

There are several common causes for receiving a delayed write error:

Device Drivers – many hard disk drivers for Windows XP with service pack 2 are known to cause this problem. Make sure that you update to the latest drivers. If you are using a public computer or one at your job, ask your IT department to please update the machine or machines you normally use to the latest drivers.

Cabling – a bad USB cable can cause this problem especially if it is intermittent. Try using a new cable if possible to see if the error reoccurs.

Disk problems – it is possible that the disk does have bad sectors. There are several utilities that can check the drive and mark bad blocks so the operating system doesn’t try to use them again. If you think that might be the problem, your local computer store can suggest what tools to buy or run the programs for you for a small fee.

BIOS settings – sometimes the BIOS settings on the computer are set to mode 6 for UDMA. Many of the portable USB hard drives need to have these setting set to mode 5 or you can get a BIOS upgrade that will auto detect the USB drive controller capability.

Disk caching – Sometimes writing to the cache before data is written to the USB hard drive can cause corruption. Turn off disk caching for the USB hard drive by doing the following things:

Select Start then right-click on My Computer

Next, left-click on Properties

Click on the Hardware tab at the top

Click on the Device Manager button

Click on the + next to Disk Drives to expand it

Right click on the hard drive where you want to turn write caching off, then left click Properties Click on the Policies tab. Click on Optimize for quick removal as shown below

Hopefully, this will fix your problem if something is failing to write either to ro from the disk cache. Good luck.

What Is the Windows Registry?

donna — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 22:53:04 +0000

Everything in your computer needs configuration information to work properly. That includes both hardware and software. Originally all operating systems used flat text files to hold the configuration information. These were called initialization files (.ini) in windows and configuration (.cfg) files in Linux.

You will still an occasional .ini file in windows if an application needs some special configuration that is not available in one of the standard dynamic link libraries (.dll files) used by different applications for common functions.

All of the configurations information or a pointer to where that information is stored contained in the windows registry. Since all of the configuration information is access through the registry, it is pretty obvious why any errors or corruption in the registry can cause serious problems.

To view each hive while we discuss it below select Start->run->and type regedit. The registry editor will open a window like the one pictured below and you can view the structure and look around a little.

Registry Structure

The windows registry is a hierarchical database consisting of five root HIVES. I heard they were called hives because one of the original engineers working on it was afraid of bees. I have no idea whether or not that is true. But it is an interesting story. The five root hivers are:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT – stores all the information that the operating systems needs to open up the correct application when you double click on a file. That means that it contains the file association information. For example if you double click on a .htm or .html file, the operating system will open up a web browser by default because that is the default application for those two extensions even though other applications also use them.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER – stores all the information that is associated with a user or users who are currently logged into the system. This information will also be used a part of a user’s roaming profile as well.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – stores all of the hardware and software configuration information for the computer and all the peripherals attached to it. There are four sub keys in this hive:

HARDWARE – stores all the hardware configuration information
SAM – stores the local user account authentication database and access permissions for resources
SECURITY – stores group policy and other policy information
SOFTWARE – stores the configuration for every application installed on the local computer and the operating system itself
SYSTEM – contains all of the control sets, last known good configuration, restore points, WPA, WEP, etc settings and a list of the devices mounted on the operating systems such as hard drives, cd-roms, etc.

HKEY_USERS – contains the configuration information for every user who has an account on the machine or has ever logged onto the machine. The information from this hive is loaded into the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive when a user logs onto the machine.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG – stores the machines current runtime configuration which is regenerated at each boot up and is linked to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Hardware Profiles\Current

Registry Data Formats

Registry data uses special formats which seems to be based on the data formats used in SQL databases

Value Name	Data Type
REG_BINARY	Binary data in any form
REG_DWORD	A 32-bit number
REG_DWORD_LITTLE_ENDIAN	A 32-bit number in little-endian format which allows windows to run on little-endian architectures
REG_DWORD_BIG_ENDIAN	A 32-bit number in big-endian format which is supported by some UNIX systems
REG_EXPAND_SZ	A null-terminated string that contains unexpanded references to environment variables (e.g., “%PATH%”)
REG_LINK	A null-terminated Unicode string that contains the target path of a symbolic link
REG_MULTI_SZ	A sequence of null-terminated strings, terminated by an empty string ()
REG_NONE	No defined value type
REG_QWORD	A 64-bit number
REG_QWORD_LITTLE_ENDIAN	A 64-bit number in little-endian format
REG_SZ	A single null-terminated string

Conclusion

Like all databases, the windows registry needs periodic maintenance. The best to do this is to use a good registry cleaner periodically. How often depends on whether you upload and download a lot of file or install and uninstall a lot of applications. Once a month is reasonable for most people.

Damaged MBR Error Message

donna — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:41:50 +0000

MBR is the acronym for Master Boot Record. The master boot record is located in the boot section of your hard drive, which is the first sector on the first platter. When you boot your computer, the master boot record tells the computer’s BIOS (Basic Input Output System) where to find the bootstrap code for the operating system.

So if the MBR is corrupted, the BIOS can’t find the operating system and you can get error messages like the following ones:

Missing operating system

Error loading system

Invalid partition table

Looks pretty scary, doesn’t it?

However, it is usually not that hard to fix a corrupted MBR and usually the rest f the hard drive is just fine and will boot normally once your fix the master boot record.

What Causes Damage to the MBR?

A lot of things can cause damage to the MBR such as viruses designed to corrupt the boot sector. Some of them copy the original MBR to another file. Others do this by overwriting the MBR with virus code. In fact viruses and malware are one of the most frequent causes but, any file can become corrupted especially files that are accessed as frequently as the MBR.

How to Fix the MBR

The stapes to fix the MBR are slightly different in the different versions of Windows. So I will cover them separately.

Windows XP

Insert your XP installation disk in the CD-Rom and reboot the computer

When asked, press any key to boot from the CD

When you get the Welcome to Setup screen, press “R” to open the repair console

Enter your administrator password when prompted

At the command prompt, type fixmbr and press enter

When a new command prompt appears, type exit

Remove your installation CD

Restart the computer

Windows Vista

Insert your Vista installation disk in the CD-ROM and reboot the computer

When asked, press any key to boot from the CD

When you get the Install Windows screen, fill in the language and location options and then click Next

Click on the Repair your computer option

Select the Windows Vista operating system and click Next

Enter your administrator password when prompted

In the System Recovery Options, select Command Prompt

When a command prompt appears, type bootrec.exe and press enter to fix the MBR

When a new command prompt appears, type exit

Remove your installation CD

Click Restart in the System Recovery Options window

Windows 7

Insert your Windows 7 installation disk in the CD-ROM and reboot the computer

When asked, press any key to boot from the CD

When you get the Install Windows screen, fill in the language, Time and Keyboard Input options and then click Next

Click on the Repair your computer option

In the System Recovery Options, select Command Prompt

When a command prompt appears, change to the boot directory

Now type bootsect /nt60 SYS and press enter to fix the MBR

When a new command prompt appears, type exit

Remove your installation CD

Reboot the computer

What is Kernel Memory Corruption?

donna — Fri, 28 May 2010 03:48:41 +0000

If you have ever experienced the blur screen of death, then you have most likely been a victim of kernel memory corruption. Figuring out what happened is almost like solving a crime. The bad guy did the damage and is long gone leaving you to clean up the mess and salvage whatever you can salvage.

As we discussed before, kernel memory corruption can be caused by either hardware of software problems but it is usually the result of a poor quality or incorrect device driver. There are several tools available to help diagnose and repair these problems.

Let’s look at the memory architecture so you can understand what is actually happening in that mysterious memory world where the players are like ghosts that you know are there but never really can see.

Most drivers run in high memory in either the paged or non paged memory pool. A pool is just a block of addresses reserved for a specific purpose. Data residing in paged memory may be ion the RAM or it may on the hard drive in the memory swap file. Data residing in non-paged memory is always in the RAM. The picture below shows the allocation table for a block of memory.

Of course this picture means nothing to most people.

Each row is a bock of memory that has been allocated to specific data. Notice the last one is marked as free which means any application that is allowed to write to this part of the memory can use this block for its data. Each block is marked with an four character identifier called a tag that and the size of the data. The memory manager uses this information to find the requested data.

The most common error caused by poor driver software is for the program to write to it allocated block and then write to the next block overwriting data that belongs to someone else which causes an immediate crash With the stop error code similar to STOP 0x0000001e

If the memory manager tried to read the memory location later, it will probably crash with one of the following error codes:

Bug Check 0×19: BAD_POOL_HEADER

Bug Check 0xC2: BAD_POOL_CALLER

Windows 7 has added a guard page that is similar to the guard bands used in digital transmission. It is a small area of memory that no process can write to so that if a faulty driver overflows its memory block, the system won’t crash.

How to fix the Problem

There are tools that can go in and remove bad data, mark bad sectors in RAM “bad” so no process attempts to write to them. For the professional these are a good investment but for the rest of us. A hard reboot, which means a complete shutdown, should clear all memory blocks. If it doesn’t then there is some other problem with the memory.

As cheap as memory is today, it makes more sense to take your RAM chips to a dealer and have them tested. If they have any bad blocks, replace them.

After you install your new memory, run a good registry cleaner, cleanup and then defrag your hard drive. Next update all of the hardware drivers to the latest versions and your computer should run good as new.

JIT (Just In Time) Debugging Error

donna — Wed, 12 May 2010 02:38:59 +0000

Is in not uncommon to get a JIT (Just In Time Debugging) error after you restart on log off and then log back on to your windows operating system like the one pictured below.

The JIT debugger is a utility that Microsoft provides when a program that was developed using visual studio or visual basic encounters a fatal error. The Utility lets you look at the error code before the program terminates. As you can see in the picture above, the debugger is asking which program you want to use to view the error information.

Once Visual Studio is installed on a machine, the default process when an exception occurs is for the debugger to ask the user to either answer the dialogue box or tell it to ignore the exception.

How to Fix the Error

Delete the following registry keys by:

Clicking Start->Run and then typing regedit in the dialogue box and then clicking on OK as shown below.

On 32-bit systems, delete the following two registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug\Debugger HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\DbgManagedDebugger

On 64-bit systems, delete the following registry keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug\Debugger HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\DbgManagedDebugger

That should fix the problem.

What if I just want to Disable the JIT Debugger?

Of course, there are times when you want to use the JIT debugger. So being able to enable or disable the JIT debugger may be a better solution. Follow these steps to turn off JIT debugging

In Internet Explorer, select Tools -> Options
On the Internet Options dialog, go to the Advanced tab
Select Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer)
Select Disable Script Debugging (Other) as shown below

Reboot the computer

You should not longer receive Just In Time Debugging Errors.

Conclusion

The JIT debugging error is usually only annoying and can safely be turned off if you are not a software developer.

What is ActiveX?

donna — Fri, 07 May 2010 21:41:15 +0000

ActiveX is a programming control framework that allows software developers and webmasters greater freedom on how they implement their applications. Its flexibility is what can also cause problems because it makes it easier for virus and other malware programmers to do more damage if they want to cause damage. One common way that this is accomplished is the use browser pop ups to secretly install malicious programs or spy-ware on your computer’s hard drive.

So, why don’t we just block all activeX stuff? That would certainly eliminate the problem but it would also reduce application functionality in all cases and may even cause some of them to not work at all. As a result Microsoft took the middle road in dealing with ActiveX controls. They allow you to select how much access you allow on your computer by providing several configuration options. You can allow full access; disable activeX controls and several possible combinations in between the two extremes.

How to Configure ActiveX Controls

Select Start->Control Panel as shown below

In the control panel select Internet Options as shown below. XP users will have to view the control panel in classic view. If you are in the Category view, switch to classic view

The window shown below will open

Select the Security tab and click on the Custom Level Button as shown below

Scroll down until you see the following items. The recommended settings are shown in the picture below. They are not all together and you will have to continue scrolling until you find each setting

When you are finished, click OK

Close the control panel. The new setting will take effect the next time you access the internet. If you are unable to access active features with these settings, your firewall or security application may be set to block active. You will have to enable it in the firewall or security application for everything to work.

Conclusion

There is always a trade off between security and the ability to take full advantage of the features and capabilities of the services offered on the internet. Microsoft does give you the ability to configure internet access so that it meets your needs.

Fix ProPlus.msi Error

donna — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:19:03 +0000

MSI files are used by the windows installer to install or upgrade applications programs. Each MSI file contains all of the settings and configuration needed to install an application on your windows computer. Proxx.msi is an an installer file used by Microsoft office:

Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 uses pro11.msi

Microsoft Office XP Professional Edition uses pro.msi

Microsoft Office XP Professional Edition with Front Page uses proplus.msi

Office 2007 has changed the name of the installer to Office32MUI.msi orOffice64MUI.msi. Keep in mind that you can receive similar errors for office 2007. Only the name of the MIS file will be different.

Bottom Line, without these files windows cannot update your Office applications, install optional features or install patches. When you receive an error message stating that windows cannot find proplus.msi , office cannot be installed, repaired or updated.

Why is the File Missing?

There are several possible causes for receiving this error:

The file was accidentally or intentionally deleted

The file is damaged or corrupted

You have changed to drive letter or volume name assigned to the files location causing the path to be incorrect

Damaged or corrupted hard disk or hard disk index

Incorrect or missing registry entries

Can this Error be caused by a Virus or Other Malware?

Like most system errors, anything that can corrupt registry entries can cause error messages.

How to Fix a Missing ProPlus.msi Error

To repair this error performs the following steps:

Run a complete anti-virus and anti-spyware scan of the computer

Defrag the hard disk if needed by selecting Start->Control Panel->Computer Management as shown below

When the screen below appears, select Disk Defragmenter

Highlight the drive (usually the C Drive)

Then click on Defragment

Next check to see if the ProPlus.msi file is located on your hard disk by going to Start-Search and typing in the file name. The file should be located under the windows or Microsoft folder

If the file exists it is corrupted, if not it was deleted. In either case, you need to replace it with a good version

You can use either the repair CD or the installation CD that came with your computer.

Copy the proplus.msi file from the CD to the correct directory

If the repair CD has an application that will do repairs automatically after you answer a few questions.

Finally, run a good registry cleaner to remove any incorrect or corrupted registry entries.

Reboot the machine. Everything should be working properly.

Recommendation

Do routine maintenance on your PC to prevent problems from occurring. Monthly, do the following:

Antivirus scan

Malware scan

Hard disk defrag if needed

Run a good registry cleaner

Backup your files so you don’t lose your data if the machine crashes and cannot be repaired.

Like most complex devices, regular maintenance can prevent the most common problems.

How to Fix an Access Violation Error

donna — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:23:37 +0000

An access violation has been called many different things over the evolution of the windows operating system such as:

Blue Screen of Death

General Protection Fault

Invalid Page Fault

Segmentation Error

Basically an access violation means that an application tried to use a portion of the Random Access Memory (RAM) that was being used by another process or one to which the process has no valid access. If two processes were able to access the memory location simultaneously, it would corrupt the data and possibly cause enough damage to require that you reinstall the operating system.

Occasionally a process will try to access memory reserved for the operating system which causes the process to crash. The picture below shows a typical access violation error message.

The error message above says that a process from the Mail Washer application was trying to read data at memory address 004039CC and memory address 00000026. An access violation can occur when a process is either reading or writing data. On the memory dump, it will be referred to as a STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION.

So as annoying as there errors are, they are actually a protective mechanism for both your operating system files and other data.

What Causes Two Process to Try and Write to the Same Memory Location?

There are several possible causes for getting this kind of error such as:

The error occurs because one process did not lock the memory location before accessing. Locking memory locations informs all other processes that they cannot use this location until it is unlocked for general use

If a running process triggers Data Execution Prevention (DEP) which is designed to use both hardware and software to minimize the threat of malicious code such as viruses being able to execute from memory locations tagged as data. These errors happen either because the programmer did not follow the DEP rules or it is an actual malware program

The windows update process svchost.exe runs into a memory leak when scanning for updates that use the windows installer

How to Fix an Access Violation Error

Follow these steps to fix access violation errors:

Download and install all the latest Microsoft Updates. If it is a svchost.exe error from the automatic update process, manually download and install the updates

Next do a complete virus scan and malware scan to eliminate any problems that are being caused by viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, adware, etc.

If you are having problems with a specific application, go to the publisher’s website and download and install any patches or free updates for the application

Reboot the machine and then run a good registry cleaner to fix any invalid entries and remove any orphaned entries that may be left behind after all the updating you just did.

That should fix the problem. However, if you still have a problem with a specific application and the patches and/or free updates did not solve the problem, you will either need to stop using that application or upgrade the latest version.

Recommendation

Steps 1, 2 and 4 listed above should be part of a monthly maintenance program for your PC. Proper maintenance can prevent most of these problems from happening in the first place.

Why is There More Than One Svchost.exe Running on My Computer?

donna — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:51:22 +0000

If you are reading this article, I assume that you noticed that there are multiple instances of svchost.exe listed in the Task Manager Process list as shown in the picture below. You have no clue what they are so you are afraid to kill them but don’t remember starting anything.

When asked, Microsoft gave us this definition, “svchost.exe is a generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries”.

Basically svchost.exe is a process that allows applications to access DLL files which are part of the C programming language procedure calls.

The Svchost.exe file is normally located in the c:\System32 folder. At start up, Svchost.exe checks the services part of the registry and creates a list of services to load. Each DLL needs it own instance of svchost.exe I to be able to execute without risking an error in the DLL file crashing the operating system. In fact the operating groups services to allow for better control of the services running.

The list of service groups can be found in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Svchost in the registry. Each value identifies a separate group as shown below. Each of the folders below the SvcHost Key is a separate group.

If you want to see a list of each service running in each instance of svchost.exe, do the following:

Click Start on the Windows task bar, and then click Run

In the Open dialogue box, type CMD, and then press ENTER.

Type Tasklist /SVC, and then press ENTER.

Tasklist uses the SVC switch will produce results similar to those shown below:

See the different services running in each instance of svchost.exe. PID (Process ID) 752 has 31 services running in it while PID 1604 has only one.

Can ScvHost.exe Be a Virus, Trojan or Some Other Type of Malware?

Like all system files if they are located anywhere besides the windows directory, they are probably some form of malware. You can use the Tasklist /svc command to see what services are running in each instance of svchost.exe. Use your favorite search engine to see what each service does and whether it is legitimate.

However, it is much safer to use a good anti virus and anti spyware program to get rid of any svchost.exe files that contain malware. In the picture below, notice that the offending file is in a directory names SVCHOST. EXE. There should not be any directory anywhere on your computer with that name.

Plugging the Memory Leak in SvcHost.exe

Sometimes these processes have a memory leak and start consuming most, if not all, of the free memory available to your computer. The result is anything from ridiculously slow performance to a complete freeze up. You may also get an error message similar to the one below.

The following steps can correct the memory leak caused by svchost.exe:

Download and install all service packs and security updates from Microsoft

Run a good virus scanner

Run an anti-spyware program

Run a good registry cleaner

Reboot the machine

The steps above usually fix the problem. If it doesn’t fix it:

Search for all files named svchost.exe on your computer. The search results from my computer show that all of the svchost.exe files in windows folder where they belong

Delete any that are not in the windows folder or one of it sub directories

Reboot the machine

Recommendation

Perform steps 1 through 5 above at least once a month. More frequently if you download a lot of files from the internet. Routine maintenance will prevent most system file errors and catch most viruses and malware files and remove them.

PCPowerGuide.com » Runtime

.NET Runtime Error

What is a .NET Runtime Error?

How to fix a .NET Runtime Error

Data Corruption When Writing to USB Hard Drives!

Common Causes for Delayed Write Errors

Related Searches

What Is the Windows Registry?

Registry Structure

Registry Data Formats

Conclusion

Damaged MBR Error Message

What Causes Damage to the MBR?

How to Fix the MBR

Windows XP

Windows Vista

Windows 7

Related Searches

What is Kernel Memory Corruption?

How to fix the Problem

Related Searches

JIT (Just In Time) Debugging Error

How to Fix the Error

What if I just want to Disable the JIT Debugger?

Conclusion

Related Searches

What is ActiveX?

How to Configure ActiveX Controls

Conclusion

Fix ProPlus.msi Error

Why is the File Missing?

Can this Error be caused by a Virus or Other Malware?

How to Fix a Missing ProPlus.msi Error

Recommendation

Related Searches

How to Fix an Access Violation Error

What Causes Two Process to Try and Write to the Same Memory Location?

How to Fix an Access Violation Error

Related Searches

Why is There More Than One Svchost.exe Running on My Computer?

Can ScvHost.exe Be a Virus, Trojan or Some Other Type of Malware?

Plugging the Memory Leak in SvcHost.exe

Recommendation

Related Searches