Techs-on-Call Computer Blog

Here is an easy fix. After performing an in-place upgrade (repair installation) of a Windows XP damaged by a virus, the user had this error. There was a red circle with an X in the middle by the clock.  Double-clicking on the red circle X brings up an error that starts with "You have exceeded your profile storage space". There were some more information. The pop-up window then proceeded to list a bunch of file in the My Documents folder.

The fix is very easy. Open the registry editor (Windows Key + r -> regedit) and browse to the hive HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ System. Then change the registry key EnableProfileQuota to 0. The problem should immediately disappear.

This is a feature for workplace computers which are managed by a central server. This is not a feature for home users. In this case, it appears some malware made the change just to make life more annoying and thus making removal more difficult.

I had a laptop computer with that had the STOP 0x0000007E blue screen error code. It happened while starting Windows, even in safe mode. I knew from the customer told me that he had a malware problem. Since I could even get into Windows, I didn't know what exactly was causing this issue. Every article I've read said it was a driver issue. And I think that is correct considering it happened before Windows even loaded. The two knowledgebase articles (here and here) that I found from Microsoft did not help. Neither did a simple disk check.

I pulled the hard drive out of the laptop and scanned it with an antivirus and antimalware program. There was some very nasty stuff on that computer, even a rootkit. After cleaning up the malware, I put the hard drive back in the computer. Still, the STOP 0x7E message was there.

This meant I had only one option left: the in-place upgrade, commonly known as a repair installation. I find that the in-place upgrade option can fix bad drivers because you are forced to re-install them during the setup process. If the driver is bad, you can simply delete the file before it detects it. Pressing the SHIFT + F10 keys brings up a command prompt which can use to find the bad driver file and delete it. In any event, performing the in-place upgrade fixed the problem.

Not every installation of Windows XP can perform an in-place upgrade. But if it can, it is my experinece that 95 times out 100 it fixes any problem you have with getting Windows to start. It is time consuming, but effective.

This week I had a computer that was loaded with malware. While I was working on the problem, I had to restart the computer. Upon restarting the computer, the first thing that appears is a pop-up box about winlogon.exe with the error message: 'The instruction at '(some address)' referenced memory at '(some address)'. The memory could not be "read". Click on OK to terminate the program. Click on CANCEL to debug the program.' Of course I did not write the addresses because that was irrelevant. What stood out to me was the fact the word "read" was in quotes.

The options were to click OK or CANCEL. When you click OK, Windows immediately restarts. However, if you just move the pop-up box out of the way, I was able to sign in no problem.

Many of the answers I was finding were saying bad memory. I knew it wasn't bad memory. I knew it was malware. I ran Malware Bytes, it cleaned the computer up, and the error never came back. This particular computer was loaded with close to 500 Vundo trojans but not much else.

This computer was a business compuer and required an interactive logon, that is the logon that requires you to type the username in instead of selecting the user by an icon. If you need to get to the interactive logon window, just hold down CTRL+ALT and then quickly press DELETE twice.

Sometimes, a virus or malware will modify the registry so that when you log in, a malicious file is processed instead of the standard windows file. There are several types of viruses that do this. Fortunately, the fix for all is the same.

When Windows logs in, a file listed in the registry is processed first. (More on this in the fix.) If that file is not there or is corrupt, then Windows logs out right away. What happens is a virus changes the file which Windows looks for when logging in, and then something else deletes or renames that file. The result is the log in, log out routine. This is something found on Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Home Server. The file that should be loaded is the userinit.exe file. However, even that file may be replaced with a malicious one.

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Windows Mail in Vista has a very common bug in it. Every so often, the spellcheck feature in it stops works. It gives this error "This language is no longer available for Spell Checking Please select another in the Spelling Options Dialogue". Fortunately, the fix is very easy.

To fix the problem, open Windows Mail. Then click at the menu bar at the top TOOLS -> OPTIONS -> SPELLING. At the bottom is the option to choose which language to spell check, choose any one except English. Then click Apply at the very bottom. Then change the language option back to English and click OK. That will solve the problem.