MSVCRT.dll error...not cool =(

This is startin to piece me off. Friday I just did a whole system restore because i couldn't fix my Explorer fatal errors (caused by rundll32) or my AIM error (caused by MSVCRT.dll) and lo and behold, yesterday, 3 days after doing the restore, here comes the MSVCRT.dll error again, causing both IE and AIM to crash. When AIM crashes i get the dreaded box with the red X in it that says "AIM" and if i hit more details it says MSVCRT.dll. When IE crashes, I get the big gray box, and i hit more details, and it says "ModName: MSVCRT.dll." It sucks because 90% of the sites on the net I can't go to or else I get that error. Google doesn't crash (thank god) and I searched the file on there, downloaded a new MSVCRT.dll to maybe replace the one i already have in the Windows\System folder, but the only problem is I can never replace it because when I try to, it says I can't because MSVCRT.dll is being used by Windows. Even when I end task every program running, it still says it's being used.

THIS SUCKS!

Somebody help.

I'm running Windows 98. Any help is GREATLY appreciated. Thank you!

Did you try F8 at startup to boot into safe mode? Usually does the trick, though I've never had to replace that file =\ Btw, are you running any type of firewall? If your not, you need to.

Sygate:http://smb.sygate.com/download/download.php?pid=spf

ZoneAlarm:http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/1012_zl/zlsSetup_50_590_015.exe

Good luck!
- Lotus

Hi Kle,
First off, while Lotus was trying to helpful DLL hell has absolutely nothing to do with firewalls or a lack thereof. I wouldn't recommend installing a firewall unless you want to add additional complexity, instabability, and reduce the over all performance of your system. My guess is AIM and IEXPLORE were both designed for newer versions of MSVCRT.DLL and you installed some older piece of software that overwrote a more recent copy.

You aren't going to be able to overwrite that file outside of DOS or possibly safe mode, however doing that manually is not a necessary job anyways. Just run an update package and let it overwrite the file while windows is still loading. Please download and install these updated Visual C++ Service Pack 6 runtimes (MSVCRT stands for MS Visual C++ Runtimes by the way):
http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc60pro/Update/1/W9XNT4/EN-US/VC6RedistSetup_enu.exe
Keep that file and you may want to re-install it periodically after installing other titles. It will always be safe to re-install this package even when it's out of date, because when it's out of date it won't overwrite anything, unlike whatever the program was that hosed your MSVCRT.dll.

By the way it should be noted that newer and far superior operating systems like Windows 2000 (best choice), Windows XP, and 2003 all have some built in file protection and will restore most system files if a program overwrites one of them with an outdated version. I would recommend Windows 2000, because XP and 2003 are still too new and are still loaded with bugs, though both are far more stable than Windows 98 or 98SE.

Cheers,
Christian Blackburn

You can learn more about this update at:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.asp...;NoWebContent=1

Cheers,
Christian Blackburn

Originally posted by christianb:


You are absolutely correct christianb, a firewall has nothing to do with DLL hell. KLEShreen stated he was having problems, did a restore, then 3 days later the error popped up again. If it ran ok for 3 days, then went "bad", it sounds like it could be exploit related. Someone hitting a weakness in his OS. Todays internet is full of exploiters. I can't imagine not having a firewall today.

KLEShreen, I hope you get it figured out one way or another. Good luck my friend. Keep us updated.

- Lotus

First I want to thank all of you guys for helping me out. These are the first really knowledgeable answers I've gotten from anywhere. I tried downloading the update that was first posted, from the Microsoft Downloads site, but of course, as is my luck, got a "resource that is needed seems to be corrupted" message and the exe wouldn't run.

So now what do we do?

Well, we do what any frustrated computer user does...we're goin to get a new computer on Saturday. Ours has been outdated for many a years (98, 650 MHZ, P3 Processor, no 3-d graphics card, etc.) so we'll be getting a new computer, with XP Home...and from what I've heard I'm sure I'll be running into problems with that, especially with installing new updates when we first get it, so I'll probably be back

Once again, thanks to all of you for the great help, very knowledgeable people here

Well I finally got the new stuff hooked up...and yay, no problems :P

And for those of you in the thread who want to know...we got a HP Pavilion a520n 2.2 GHZ, AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 512 MB Ram, and we got it pre-loaded with the ATI All-In-Wonder that I see I have to buy more cable hookups to figure out. That should be boatloads of fun. I'll probably end up stopping by the XP Hardware part to figure that out in the coming days/weeks...

I found a solution to the msvcrt.dll error.

Find a newer version of msvcrt.dll (look at the date) and replace the one in your C:\Windows\System folder.

Here's what I did: Found all copies of msvcrt.dll on the PC. I found many copies and took the latest dated one and copied it to C:\. Then I rebooted into command-prompt-only mode and replaced the bad msvcrt.dll (located in C:\Windows\System) with the newer copy that I put in C:\.

Now it should work perfectly!
AnakiMana

My computer recently has been acting up and in programs like limewire and internet explorer whenever i try to run them i get a messge box that says the program has caused an error in MSVCRT.DLL and then it terminates. Explorer still runs after the box appears but I cant run AIM, Limewire, or netscape. i need help. what do i do?

The MSVCRT.dll error is one of those ubiquitous ones that used to occur with a lot of frequency because certain programs installed over the latest Microsoft version of the dll and replaced it with one that was compatible with the software that was being installed. Try here http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downl...ies/Default.asp to reload the libraries.

i tryed restoring the libraries with form the link you just posted but its still doing it.=(

imt rying to replace the file manually but i cant get the computer in ms-dos mode. when i go to the start up menu its not an option

Why do you need to get into DOS to replace that file? If it's blocked by Windows File Protection, then WFPdisable is a good solution.

And, you might want to do a find on MSVCRT.DLL since it sometimes gets buried in subdirectories of different applications and is defaulted to when that application runs. Netscape used to be notorious for doing this.

Alright gurus, here is the million dollar question. It seems that XPSP2 (the one we should have waited for the service pack on). In it is version 7 of the msvcrt.dll which is just lovely UNLESS you are running Oracle and the Java client, in which case you NEED version 6 - which is provided with the JVM and a half dozen other programs. How do you get XP to unload the offesive (SP2) .dll and use the correct (v.6) .dll.

And don't tell me that the option is to switch to SQLServer...

We are on a windows NT server and we are getting the error regarding msvcrt.dll file. Does the inuse.exe program work with windows NT? We are running on an NTFS file system so i'm doubting it will work.

We started getting this error when a third party cd writing software program was installed.

No most programs don't open and we get the error ENTRY POINT NOT FOUND etc.....

Can someone assist me please? Windows is using the file i need to replace...........

How would i go about doing a parallel installation of NT into another folder/directory? More importantly how would I boot into this parallel installation if it's in a different directory other than the root directory?

Yo, saw this post about the msvcrt dll, and I fully agree, that thing's a pain.

I'm running Windows XP, and recently had to reinstall due to some strange program fuckups(programs refused to close when I told them to, and would take up 99% of my active CPU. Nasty thing.)

So this new reinstall was running great. I was installing the repretoire of windows updates that I usually do, and the very first update(a security update) caused my system to enter a state of nigh-irreversible hell. Somehow or another that update knocked out my msvcrt file completely. I was able to use a LKGC to get it back, but before I did that, not even safe mode would boot. And since my motherboard is a honkin piece of sod, I cant boot from CDs(word to the wise, dont buy Epox, they degrade in the oddest of ways. Yes, I tested many bootable CDs, many CD drives, et cetera). So that was a little less than fun.

So now that I have it back, sort of, my system is totally crippled. Windows media player was the first obvious casualty, going so far as to totally remove itself from existence. Most other media-related programs went pretty much belly-up as well, including the MSI PVS software by Intervideo. I KNEW that wasnt stable, but this is still ridiculous.

The biggest problem I face is that this also caused windows installer to go more than a little bad. Needless to say everything's a mess right now. Anyone got any one-step solutions for getting this sort of thing resituated? I'm guessing I could dig up another board and run a reinstall(again) and hope for some results, but I'd love it if I could do something short of that to solve this little canundrum.

Hello. I'm having the MSVCRT.DLL issue with IE and media player, but I'm running xp home edition and so far all the advice I've found on various websites is for windows 98. Can anyone help me?