Applog Corruption? (W98)

[Tess_Trueheart]

Hi all.

Being very new to digging around inside my computer's workings, I thought I best ask questions and hopefully get responsible answers from reliable sources like here at WinGuides.

Suddenly, my machine is doing all sorts of weirdness -- no, it's not a trojan/virus/nasty, as I've gone through every possible avenue elsewhere with AV, AT, antispyware, etc. measures with the help of many experts like those at spywareinfo.com (thanks gang!).

My CD burner program suddenly stopped working, but the intro splash screen will start up upon typing a URL into the IE menu after a (re)boot.

As of this a.m., my MSIMN.exe doesn't seem to be functioning right anymore. Suddenly, even the inbox is hanging, I can't view it. Also, my Disk Defrag has quit working altogether.

I'm sure there are probably other 'little things' that have quit functioning correctly too here recently but I'm still too new at this to recognize all of them.

I've browsed search engines hoping to spot a similar situation and how it might have been resolved in the past. Nothing else quite matches up, but I do note references to corrupt applog files preventing Disk Defrag from running. One page spoke of looking inside the applog file and if there were titles with tildas in them that was an indication that the file had become corrupted and would start affecting application function.

Sure enough, I've got a few with tildas in there.

So, is it a safe bet that this is my problem overall, do you think?

Now, how to rectify it? I see where there is mention of deleting Internet Temp files, Temp files, and the applog file itself, the latter is supposed to rebuild itself after rebooting -- is this correct?

Also, I have never in my recollection deleted a temp file, though regularly clean out the internet temp files and obvious cookies (but I've never been able to figure out how to clean out those nesting in index.dat). So how do I do this? Are there some temp files that NEED to be kept, and if so, how do I identify them, delete some, but not all and maybe risk making things worse?

Then, once I do all of the above, I'm supposed to run disk defragmenter again? Should I do anything else? How?

Arrgh, sorry for the 60 million questions, but I'd like to fix this on my own and not have to resort to doing a full wipe and restore -- or at least having a techie friend do the latter, as I don't trust myself to on my own yet (I hate the QuickRestore CD and the factory themselves have admitted it was botched but still have never sent anything better).

Thanks in advance if anybody can help me out here (in easy-to-understand nube language, if you please ;-)

[Hally]

Hi Tess you seem to have quite a problem. . lets start with temp files, you can delete all of them. Your Applog folder just right click the folder & delete it, don't worry it gets re-written at startup but this time empty

Now there are a few ways to delete all the temp internet files including index.dat <a target="_blank" href=http://www.fsm.nl/ward/>Click Here</a> for a great little progrsam easy to use "Spider" you will have a new index.dat after its all done

Try all those & post back there are a lot of great people here that will definately help you get fixed Tess

Good Luck /images/forums/icons/smile.gif


<font color=blue>&gt;&gt;Hally&lt;&lt;
&gt;&gt;&gt;/images/forums/icons/laugh.gif&lt;&lt;&lt;</font color=blue>

[Tess_Trueheart]

Hi Hally, thanks for trying to help!

Ok, now by 'deleting temp' files, you mean it is safe to delete all temp files? Or only just those in the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP file, or --? How to find them all? Are they all ending in an extension like .tmp or something? I tried calling files with that extension up in the FIND feature but nothing is coming up (but I know the TEMP file is pretty fat right now).

Also: I downloaded Spider as you suggested, ran it, but it appears to not be not working. It won't clean out the URLs after I press the radio button with the ambulance on it/'Cleanup' -- despite having 'hidden URL', 'cookies', 'Temporary Internet Files', 'History Files' all checked under Options. I re-boot as it asks, I re-scan, but everything is still showing up as it was, lots of URLs. What am I doing wrong?

I went ahead and deleted Applog, it is completely empty now, but the CD burner program's splash screen is still showing up after I type a URL in the IE browser menu (but only the first time I try to enter a URL following reboot, oddly). The burner program is refusing to function still as well.

Email is still botched. Can't get OE to let me see 'inbox', just sits there with the browser indicating function, but nothing happens (the upper menu bar where it says 'Outlook Express' goes grey).

And Defrag still stops as soon as it's clicked. Not grinds or hitches as though I've got too many programs open (I know to close about everything except Systray, Explorer, and my firewall), but it just stops after a split millisecond of trying to go. Then I get a VxD/BSoD.

Argggh. I'm frustrated. Needed to send a requested resume out today, amongst other things ...

Thanks if you or one of the other folks out there has got a notion of what I need to do to clean up this mess.

[bilal_hameed]

well I had almost same scenario once and like yourself even all the AV proggies failed ... in the end I formatted the boot partition and than I ran the AV and well if did found like 70+ files affecting with W32.FunLove.4099 ... and I tell you when I was running the checks before the formatting ... it would'nt tell me that the system was affected ... I tried moth mcafee and norton but that did not work ... and same was happening over and over again ... so than I backed up my working files and I formatted the first boot partition (which is :C) ... and than I reinstalled everything back again and it worked fine ....

so this is what I am asking ... dun be so sure that it's not affected ... this is my personal experience hope you can get some help out of it ... :)

[Hally]

Hi Tess go back into Spider & hit the "Start Search" button then after it does a search then hit the ambulane button, click all the "Remove boxes when they come up

Your temp files Tess can be in any folder not just the actual Temp Folder , if you are familiar with dos, when you hit start button & then "shutdown" next restart in dos mode
type in exactly what you see between the lines (print it maybe for easy copying)
type y after each line if it asks you (y = yes)
----------------------------------------------
cd\windows
deltree c:\windows\tmp
deltree c:\windows\ff*.tmp
deltree c:\windows\temp\*.* &gt; nul
exit
-----------------------------------------------
You will have more room on your computer now
In Windows Explorer find the folder Applog & delete it fully the entire folder just right click & delete

Try all those things Tess & be patient all will work out well for you
Good Luck, post back with your results or if you don't know how to do the dos thing




<font color=blue>&gt;&gt;Hally&lt;&lt;
&gt;&gt;&gt;/images/forums/icons/laugh.gif&lt;&lt;&lt;</font color=blue>

[mysterywolf]

defrag and applog...
applog contains entries which show what is used and in what order when you start an installed program. defrag uses this info applog to optimize the order of files on disk for faster access. the tildas mean that 8.3 name format is being used - and it shouldn't be!!
yes, applog could be corrupt, but more likely is that either
1.some of your system files have been replaced with much older versions.or
2. you have installed apps not suitable for win98. or
3. you have real-mode drivers running from start-up files or to the same effect compression / disk utils/ drive overlays running.

i would think back to what you recently installed
check autoexec.bat and config.sys and rem out every line until its sorted (win98 does not need anything in these anyhow - except for soundcard maybe , and even that's better avoided).
uninstall any 3rd party disk utils.
run system information, system file checker, revert to default sf0 and run the check.
look in control panel, system and check if drives are in ms-dos compatibility mode.
run scandisk.