Yet another computer issue

[robmob]

Allright computer guys.

This morning I booted the computer and was met with some error popups.

Most programs I try to open will come up with a (program name).exe - Bad Image error.

In the window it shows:

C: \Windows\system32\wow64cpu.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains and error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system adminstrator or the software vendor for support.

Running Vista.

Any help on what to do from here would be appreciated.

FYI, the error comes up when opening explorer, but eventually it opens. Firefox, word, excel and a bunch of other software will not open.

 

[MotoGod]

Are you running the 64 bit Vista? That dll is kind of an interpreter for 32 bit apps on a 64 bit OS. You may want to try either doing a rollback within Vista, or re-installing the latest Service Pack.

Here is some info on the DLL at least.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384274(VS.85).aspx

 

[robmob]

Yes it's the 64 bit.

 

[beason]

I'm with moto, sounds like the 32 bit stuff is having an issue with running in the 64 bit OS. try what he said, with the updates, and let us know. i may have to do some research on that one.

 

[robmob]

Sigh.

Windows updates must have installed some updates while I was away. It looks like it installed 3 and and then needed to be reboot.

Upon reboot, it completes the first 2 and on the 3rd it seems to hang and then reboots itself over and the process starts again.

In safe mode, it just reboots itself with completing the start-up.

In fact no matter what mode it uses it just keeps rebooting itself and hangs up while trying to to whatever to update 3 of 3.

At this point I am done with it. I am not a computer guy. I just want the $#@!ing to work.

Fortunately, it is a new computer and not much is on it. I also backed up all the poop in the documents folder last weekend. I was going to mirror the entire drive onto an external drive this weekend. I guess I should have done it sooner.

 

[beason]

when its booting press f8, like you did to go to safe mode. see if there is an option for last known good configuration. i havent used vista a whole lot so I'm not sure what all options you have.

 

[robmob]

That would not work.

I inserted the Vista CD and basically did the same thing. I have now gotten it to boot up again without issue, but I still have the original problem stated in my first post.

Every thing I have read says to reinstall the problem software. Problem is, nothing is working. Word, Excel, Firefox, Itunes, etc all bring up the same error screen.


It has to be the dll file that is bad right?

 

[.21Rc10GT]

Do you have everything backed up so you can just format it?

 

[robmob]

Yes.

That will be the last resort.

 

[Racer 1966]

Hey Rob, I was bored so I figured I would try to help you out. The only thing of possible help I found was this post from a tech forum. No guarantees it'll help!





Reply Re: vmware.exe - Bad Image error in 64 bit Vista Dec 28, 2007 5:00 AM

Taligent
2 posts since
Dec 28, 2007
Reply 1. Re: vmware.exe - Bad Image error in 64 bit Vista Dec 28, 2007 5:00 AM


I'm not going to mark this as an answer since I don't know why it helped... However, my system is running fine now.

After a bit of Googling, I came across a note on Microsofts KB941649. I noticed it was supposed to fix compatibility with a system, so I took a crack and uninstalled the update. After a reboot, vmware worked, Vista validated again, and other 32 bit software worked (Vmware was the first app I noticed did not work, then things snowballed after that). I have no idea why uninstalling KB941649 worked. However, I went ahead and reinstalled it and now things work fine. Perhaps I had a bad install in spite of the fact that windows update said it had installed succesfully.

 

[robmob]

Thanks for the responses.

It turns out the wow64cpu.dll file somehow got corrupted. All it took was to copy the same file from another computer and replace the corrupted one on my computer. Voila, all is better now.

Unknown what actually caused the problem in the first place.

 

[Thunder_tiger_eb4]

Personally, i can't stand vista, my missus can't either, too many "program compatability" issues. Even the 32 bit os is a pain.

My advice ? Ditch vist and go to win XP service pack 3. Less hassle, more stability. more program availability. or you could just wait for windows 7 to come along and install that instead. just my $0.02 worth