asked on

NTVDM encountered a hard error

hello

i have a server running server 2003 which is used to run a few legal programs and store backups.

one of these pieces of software has stopped working today and when you try to start it comes up with the error.

"NTVDM encountered a hard error"

I have no idea what has caused this or how to resolve it. also this company has failed to pay for support for this software so cannot contact the software supplier.

i googled the problem and found this solution

"- check the following registry values to ensure that there are no file name issues

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\Win95TruncatedExtensions value (should be 1)

- check the TMP and TEMP values in the User variables. Set the value to C:\TEMP"

i checked the registry values which were correct but did not understand what was meant by the second part

"check the TMP and TEMP values in the User variables. Set the value to C:\TEMP"

this may not even be a solution so any help at all would be greatly appreciated

thank you

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

David

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

drzackzuss

ASKER

Hello

thank you for replying to my post

there is a directory "c:\temp"

I have run SET from the dos prompt and TMP and TEMP point to

C:\documents and settings\administrator\local settings\ temp

do i need to alter the destination to the C:\temp now?

drzackzuss

ASKER

when testing it always seems to resolve to the correct destination but adds a folder named "2"

for example i check the variables for temp and tmp

which are set to:

%USERPROFILE%\local settings\temp
%USERPROFILE%\local settings\temp

and when i run SET in command i get

TEMP = c:\docume~1\admini~.sam\locals~1\Temp\2
TMP = c:\docume~1\admini~.sam\locals~1\Temp\2

if i go into system properties and change environment variables for TEMP and TMP to:

C:\TEMP

then run SET from command i get

TEMP = C:\TEMP\2
TMP = C:\TMP\2

also when googling this error i have found this on microsoft site but not sure wether to apply this hotfix.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937932

really stuck as to what to do now :(

drzackzuss

ASKER

Hello

this issue was resolved by replacing some .ini files on the software.

thank you for your help though

David

Great. The INI files are there to add configuration settings for a program, so probably they point to a scratch directory that actually exists. Anyway, glad you have it resolved.