System.ini problems

When I boot up vista says that settings.ini is being used by another process. Close the other program and then click retry. I havent changed anything, that just started apprearing out of the blue, its not dual booting its just vista installed on this computer, does anyone know what is wrong and how I can fix it? it made me have to run mozilla as administrator cause it wouldnt open, I had to open system32\ config to be able to see my desktop icons, it now says that i dont have enough access privileges to open itunes, if anyone can help me I would be greatly appreciated and would gladly return the favor.

Does it show the path to the system.ini file it's trying to reference?

This sounds like a Malware issue to me. I've seen some that makes a change to the real system.ini in an attempt to start the malware when windows boots and that can cause an ownership conflict, and I've seen others insert an altered system.ini into another directory and try to change the system pointers to this new file, again with usually faulty issues.

I would try some well trusted spyware scans and a few online AV scans such as Eset and Symantec to see if they can find anything.

It talks about the sidebar. Also, the system32/config file seems to be screwy as well, im running a AV scan but nothing yet, its not letting me open stuff like My Documents normally, and theres duplicates of a few folders in there like there will be 2 documents folders, the first one is empty and the second one has my info.

Hi Eddie

Please open the system.ini file (Windows directory) in Notepad and copy/paste the contents here for us. Also if you can get the Exact message for us too, and if there is anything in the Event Viewer concerning this that may help as well.

I looked for the file and I couldnt find it, can you tell me exactly where it is? And the message when I log into my account says what I wrote, another one appears when I try to open My Documents or my account name folder or my computer through the start menu that reads

"C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on a network. Check to make sure that the disk is properly inserted, or that you are connected to the Internet or your network, and then try again. If it still cannot be located, the information might have been moved to a different location."

And then it gives me the option to press ok, once I press it it opens up the folder, for example, Documents, but it opens in a folder that has nothing in it, but under it the Documents folder is there with all the info, same with all the folders there like downloads, favorites, pictures, music. Im running an AV scan but nothing yet.

And also all the icons on my desktop dissappeared and only the recycle bin remains. And when i right click and refresh the system32 message appears again.

And when i try to open itunes a window pops up that says The iTunes application could not be opened. You do not have enough access privileges for this operation. Sry I keep posting stuff here but im posting the problems as I encounter them, dont know if there related or not but hopefully with your help i'll be able to solve it.

Hi Eddie

It's in the C:\Windows folder (the Windows directory) and is simply a text file called system.ini and should look like any text (.txt) file.
This is kinda looking like the system pointers are messed up...

I don't even have a "Desktop" in my C:\system32\config\systemprofile folder. I just have AppData, Contacts, and ntuser.dat and ntuser.dat.log(s), so that pointer on yours may be wrong. Are you sure it's not "desktop.ini"?

Yea the message says system.ini. and this is what the file says:

; for 16-bit app support
[386Enh]
woafont=dosapp.fon
EGA80WOA.FON=EGA80WOA.FON
EGA40WOA.FON=EGA40WOA.FON
CGA80WOA.FON=CGA80WOA.FON
CGA40WOA.FON=CGA40WOA.FON

[drivers]
wave=mmdrv.dll
timer=timer.drv

[mci]

Hi

That looks good.
I also meant the message C:\system32\config\systemprofile\"Desktop".ini and not just Desktop...(not the system.ini Eddie)...sorry, I should have clarified that one better...

Ok...gimme some time here to think and research a bit. Of course if someone else comes in with any idea that don't sound crazy idiotic (like "rename your Windows folder to "Butkiss"..), they're welcome to jump in and help.

Theres no desktop.ini there that i could see, just the desktop folder which says that its empty. Is there supposed to be one?

No, not necessarily, I just wanted to be sure that this wasn't what it was asking for, a desktop.ini file instead of a folder called Desktop. Ok, i'll be back later, hopefully with some info for you.

A million thanks man!

Hey, ran the AV scan and still nothing, this is exactly what it says, Settings.ini is being used by another process. Close the other program and then click Retry, or click Cancel to exit Sidebar. Pressing retry does nothing and cancel takes it away but it still shows up again when i log into my account, and its just in my accound the other 2 users arent having these problems.

Hi Eddie

Ok, from what I've found I believe we're looking at the wrong settings.ini file and the one we're looking at having the trouble is the C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\settings.ini
I think the problem is completely related to a misbehaving gadget. Uninstall ALL current gadgets and then reboot to see if this problem goes away. If so then you can try reinstalling your gadgets and see if the problem stops or comes back. If the issue stopped after removing all of them you can also reboot after reinstalling each gadget to see which one may have been the issue.

Unfortunately, there are MANY settings.ini files deposited all over Vista and without a complete path to which ever one is causing this it may be trial and error to find it. Or you could try a Restore point that is just before this issue started...up to you on that one tho.

Its weird that it mentions to exit sidebar since I always have it closed, and I havent added anything nor taken anything out of it.

Ok heres what I did, I turned off the sidebar so it doesnt load at startup and that stopped the message from appearing, but the problem, whatever it is, is still there, it wouldnt let me open the sidebar to see the gadgets so I couldnt turn them off to see if it was one of them causing it. But for now i'll just keep it off since i never use it anyways. Anyhow thanks for all your help Chappy much appreciated, what do you recommend I do to have my PC running great all the time? As in programs I should download and whatnot. I'm a big gamer so programs geared toward making my PC run in optimal conditions would be best. Again thanks for your help man.

Eddie820 said:

Ok heres what I did, I turned off the sidebar so it doesnt load at startup and that stopped the message from appearing, but the problem, whatever it is, is still there, it wouldnt let me open the sidebar to see the gadgets so I couldnt turn them off to see if it was one of them causing it. But for now i'll just keep it off since i never use it anyways. Anyhow thanks for all your help Chappy much appreciated, what do you recommend I do to have my PC running great all the time? As in programs I should download and whatnot. I'm a big gamer so programs geared toward making my PC run in optimal conditions would be best. Again thanks for your help man.

Click to expand...

That's a tough one, Eddie, as it depends really on what you use your computer for. But the basics are such:

1. Make a habit of regularly checking for driver updates. In your case, this would be primarily for your graphics card.
2. Keep Windows Update on automatically download updates, as these often do improve performance.
3. Keep your virus protection up to date. An all-encompassing anti-virus should do, thus eliminating the need for additional "Ad-Blocker" programs.
4. This may come as a surprise to some, but Vista's firewall is adequate for all but the most paranoid people, so a third-party firewall is almost not needed.
5. Unless you prefer Firefox (why, I have no idea), you won't need third-party Popup blockers. Internet Explorer 7 is pretty damned good at that, and IE8 Beta is even better.
6. Install Windows Search 4.0, and set it to index allyour hard disks, and then leave the machine idle overnight to allow it to finish it's indexing job. Thus done, you'll probably notice a 0.00001% drop in performance.
7. Keep your drives regularly defragged. Once a month should do it for most people.
8. And most importantly, do be a "download-install-uninstall" zombie. Decide NOW what applications and utilities are most useful to you, and install them only. If you only use a utility once and then never again for several months, then you don't need it.

I can't really think of much else at the moment, but the above is what I usually tell people that ask me the performace question. But even so, no system will run flawlessly forever, and is bound to develop problems sometime down the line. Following my own advice, I usually only do a reload once a year, during the Christmas holidays when I'm not overloaded with too much work.

K, the system.ini problem is solved, but the other one remains. I go into Start-Documents, when I open it on the left where it shows all the folders theyre almost all duplicated. and it doesnt let me do anything with my photos, and for example, when I tried to put a image in my msn display i had to go to the pictureds folder manually since it opened into the empty one, when i pressed ok to put the photo as a display pic it tells me The file you selected is not a valid image. Please choose another file. Same when I try to add a emoticon in the convo to my emoticons.

Ok, i tried deleting the duplicate documents folder which has nothing in it, when it was in the recycle bin i tried opening documents again and the system32 message reappeared, went to the recycle bin and restored it, and it showed it as the documents folder that has files in it.

There is a desktop.ini file in C:\Users... that I think Chappy is referring to.

It's a hidden file.

On my system the exact location is C:\Users\%username%\desktop.ini

The contents of my desktop.ini is in the attached image.

From here I'll have to defer back to Chappy. Hope I may have helped a bit. At least I'm trying...