XP's SP2 update killed Win98 on separate partition

I have a dual boot with WinXP on the C: and Win98 on D:

After updating XP the boot to Win 98 (before any icons show up) gives an
explorer.exe error in a white message box telling me to reinstall Windows.

Another message box before it locks up says something concerning uxtheme.dll
and ntdll.dll and something about the initializecriticalsection function. I
searched on google and it seems like these are XP errors, not Win98. What
happened?

A possible answer is that I'm somehow missing the uxtheme.dll file because
it's not in my D:\Windows\System folder (or anywhere else on the drive for
that matter). But this file is not on the Win98 installation CD or in any of
the cab files. Am I missing this file, or does Win98 think it's XP now?

This is the second time I've recieved a bot-like response that is of no use
to me.

My problem is Win98 won't boot up because of a uxtheme.dll error, whereas
WinXP works like a charm. As far as I can tell, Win98 isn't even supposed to
have uxtheme.dll, so XP's SP2 did something to my Win98 boot sequence, or
changed something it wasn't supposed to.

Here's some other things I've tried:

1. Reverting the Win98 registry to an earlier state in the command prompt
2. Putting WinXP's uxtheme.dll in the Win98 system folder
3. Checking the entire D: partition for any files that have been changed or
replaced since installing SP2 (came up negative)
4. The bootlog.txt shows no errors

The question: what could Win98 possibly be reading during startup that makes
it want to load this dll? How do I fix it?

"Rich Barry" wrote:

> Jeremy, try this patch
> http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop...P2-Final.shtml
>
>
> "Jeremy" <> wrote in message
> news:A3C94769-E38F-40B7-B6FA-...
> >I have a dual boot with WinXP on the C: and Win98 on D:
> >
> > After updating XP the boot to Win 98 (before any icons show up) gives an
> > explorer.exe error in a white message box telling me to reinstall Windows.
> >
> > Another message box before it locks up says something concerning
> > uxtheme.dll
> > and ntdll.dll and something about the initializecriticalsection function.
> > I
> > searched on google and it seems like these are XP errors, not Win98. What
> > happened?
> >
> > A possible answer is that I'm somehow missing the uxtheme.dll file because
> > it's not in my D:\Windows\System folder (or anywhere else on the drive for
> > that matter). But this file is not on the Win98 installation CD or in any
> > of
> > the cab files. Am I missing this file, or does Win98 think it's XP now?
>
>
>

Jeremy,

It sounds as if the updates were applied to the 98 HD and not to XP's.
Can you boot 98 to Safe Mode and check Add/Remove Programs to confirm
this ? If so, uninstall them in SM.
This *may* have occurred because there is more free space on the 98 HD.

MowGreen [MVP 2004-2005]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============


Jeremy wrote:

> This is the second time I've recieved a bot-like response that is of no use
> to me.
>
> My problem is Win98 won't boot up because of a uxtheme.dll error, whereas
> WinXP works like a charm. As far as I can tell, Win98 isn't even supposed to
> have uxtheme.dll, so XP's SP2 did something to my Win98 boot sequence, or
> changed something it wasn't supposed to.
>
> Here's some other things I've tried:
>
> 1. Reverting the Win98 registry to an earlier state in the command prompt
> 2. Putting WinXP's uxtheme.dll in the Win98 system folder
> 3. Checking the entire D: partition for any files that have been changed or
> replaced since installing SP2 (came up negative)
> 4. The bootlog.txt shows no errors
>
> The question: what could Win98 possibly be reading during startup that makes
> it want to load this dll? How do I fix it?
>
> "Rich Barry" wrote:
>
>
>> Jeremy, try this patch
>> http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop...P2-Final.shtml
>>
>>
>>"Jeremy" <> wrote in message
>>news:A3C94769-E38F-40B7-B6FA-...
>>
>>>I have a dual boot with WinXP on the C: and Win98 on D:
>>>
>>>After updating XP the boot to Win 98 (before any icons show up) gives an
>>>explorer.exe error in a white message box telling me to reinstall Windows.
>>>
>>>Another message box before it locks up says something concerning
>>>uxtheme.dll
>>>and ntdll.dll and something about the initializecriticalsection function.
>>>I
>>>searched on google and it seems like these are XP errors, not Win98. What
>>>happened?
>>>
>>>A possible answer is that I'm somehow missing the uxtheme.dll file because
>>>it's not in my D:\Windows\System folder (or anywhere else on the drive for
>>>that matter). But this file is not on the Win98 installation CD or in any
>>>of
>>>the cab files. Am I missing this file, or does Win98 think it's XP now?
>>
>>
>>

That's probably it since I had to free up some space on my C: to start the
SP2 installation. I guess it still looked to the D: to install some stuff
and ended up affecting Win98. However, everything on the Win98 partition
seems unaffected (no new files or modifications) so perhaps there’s something
on the C: that Win98 refers to when it boots up (besides the usual autoexec
and config files that contain nothing).

Safe mode doesn't work either, but since I'm currently using WinXP on the
same computer, there should be a way to uninstall the misplaced updates
manually.

"MowGreen [MVP]" wrote:

> Jeremy,
>
> It sounds as if the updates were applied to the 98 HD and not to XP's.
> Can you boot 98 to Safe Mode and check Add/Remove Programs to confirm
> this ? If so, uninstall them in SM.
> This *may* have occurred because there is more free space on the 98 HD.
>
> MowGreen [MVP 2004-2005]
> ===============
> *-343-* FDNY
> Never Forgotten
> ===============
>
>
> Jeremy wrote:
>
> > This is the second time I've recieved a bot-like response that is of no use
> > to me.
> >
> > My problem is Win98 won't boot up because of a uxtheme.dll error, whereas
> > WinXP works like a charm. As far as I can tell, Win98 isn't even supposed to
> > have uxtheme.dll, so XP's SP2 did something to my Win98 boot sequence, or
> > changed something it wasn't supposed to.
> >
> > Here's some other things I've tried:
> >
> > 1. Reverting the Win98 registry to an earlier state in the command prompt
> > 2. Putting WinXP's uxtheme.dll in the Win98 system folder
> > 3. Checking the entire D: partition for any files that have been changed or
> > replaced since installing SP2 (came up negative)
> > 4. The bootlog.txt shows no errors
> >
> > The question: what could Win98 possibly be reading during startup that makes
> > it want to load this dll? How do I fix it?
> >
> > "Rich Barry" wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Jeremy, try this patch
> >> http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop...P2-Final.shtml
> >>
> >>
> >>"Jeremy" <> wrote in message
> >>news:A3C94769-E38F-40B7-B6FA-...
> >>
> >>>I have a dual boot with WinXP on the C: and Win98 on D:
> >>>
> >>>After updating XP the boot to Win 98 (before any icons show up) gives an
> >>>explorer.exe error in a white message box telling me to reinstall Windows.
> >>>
> >>>Another message box before it locks up says something concerning
> >>>uxtheme.dll
> >>>and ntdll.dll and something about the initializecriticalsection function.
> >>>I
> >>>searched on google and it seems like these are XP errors, not Win98. What
> >>>happened?
> >>>
> >>>A possible answer is that I'm somehow missing the uxtheme.dll file because
> >>>it's not in my D:\Windows\System folder (or anywhere else on the drive for
> >>>that matter). But this file is not on the Win98 installation CD or in any
> >>>of
> >>>the cab files. Am I missing this file, or does Win98 think it's XP now?
> >>
> >>
> >>
>

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=306599
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=299313
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=299296

The above 3 KB articles deal with the " Explorer.exe , you must
reinstall Windows error message ". I'm not so sure that the updates were
actually installed on the 98 partition but they may have been stored
there. The issue may be System.ini on the 98 partition. You can edit it
from within XP.

This is an interesting twist, Jeremy. Not sure I've run across this before.

MowGreen [MVP 2004-2005]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============


Jeremy wrote:

> That's probably it since I had to free up some space on my C: to start the
> SP2 installation. I guess it still looked to the D: to install some stuff
> and ended up affecting Win98. However, everything on the Win98 partition
> seems unaffected (no new files or modifications) so perhaps there’s something
> on the C: that Win98 refers to when it boots up (besides the usual autoexec
> and config files that contain nothing).
>
> Safe mode doesn't work either, but since I'm currently using WinXP on the
> same computer, there should be a way to uninstall the misplaced updates
> manually.
>
> "MowGreen [MVP]" wrote:
>
>