Re: "Illegal operation" message in vpc 6.1 help

From: John McGhie (john_at_mcghie.name)
Date: 01/28/05 

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:59:36 +1100

Hi Jim:

There are several kinds of "Windows" program, and you have installed one
that Windows 98 can't run.

"Illegal operation" means the program has tried to perform an operation that
is forbidden by the operating system. "Invalid page fault" means that that
operation was an attempt to access memory the program did not own.
"Kernel32.dll" is the main procedure of the operating system, the "kernel".

Translating all of that, you have probably tried to run a program that
requires 32-bit Windows (Windows NT or above) in Windows 98 (which has a
16-bit core).

Normally the way out of this is to just wait. The program that caused the
problem will be taken out and shot by the operating system, which will then
allow you to carry on and uninstall it.

Unfortunately, if this happens during boot-up, it means that the program has
installed an illegal driver. If you tell me which program it was, we can
take a guess at which driver, but in Windows 98 it's a hell of a job to roll
it back. I am prepared to gamble a small amount of money that you tried to
install something that attempted to add the DirectX runtime. Bad idea :-)

You "could" try booting in Logged Mode. When that fails, it will leave a
file in the root of the C drive named BOOTLOG.TXT. The last line in that
file was the thing that Windows was trying to load when it blew up.

To get to the file, you would need to boot again in Safe Mode Command Prompt
Only and open the file by typing c: then "edit bootlog.txt"

The screen will fill with the content of the file, leaving the last line
visible at the bottom of the screen. Unfortunately, if the system won't get
as far as the command line, she's cactus and you will have to throw it away.
If you can see in the bootlog what failed, take a gamble and use the command
line do delete the file concerned. The operating system may start without
it. It will be very sick, but Windows is a robust old thing: it may run
well enough to allow you to run a Repair from the installation CD.

Moral of the story: do not let VPC save anything valuable to the "PC Drive".
Install Mac File Sharing and cause PC applications to save to the Mac hard
disk! Bit late to tell you that now, isn't it?

If you do have to replace your PC, do it with a copy of Windows XP. It's
much more able to protect itself from things like this, and much tougher!!

Cheers

On 16/12/04 5:14 AM, in article
1103134443.734120.180860@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, "Jim"
<jgieske@bluecrab.org> wrote:

> I am running VPC 6.1 on iMac G4 OSX 10.3.6 emulating Windows 98 SE. No
> problems until I installed a new windows program from CD ROM. Now I
> get the "Illegal operation" shut down message with detail "invalid page
> fault..KERNEL32.dll at 0167:bff711be, which means nothing to me. I
> tried the "safe mode" start and get the same message. I have only data
> from a Quicken program that i would not like to lose, otherwise I am
> happy to remove win 98 SE and VPC and start over without the new
> program. Any thoughts, Thanks, Jim
> 

-- 
Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.  Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <john@mcghie.name>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

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