bakemono wrote on 2025-10-29, 08:43:

maybe check the registry to see what it's trying to run at startup time. software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run (or something like that)

These are what load on startup, according to regedit, and what I have disabled:

asdf53 wrote on 2025-10-29, 09:08:

Download FileMon 7.04, open the filter dialog. […]
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Download FileMon 7.04, open the filter dialog.

You have two options: You can either enter the file name (xit) into the filter, FileMon will then tell you which program is trying to access that file at any moment. One problem is that if you don't know the file path, only the name, you have to work with wildcards (*xit*) and you'll probably get tons of unrelated results.

Or, enter a program name that you suspect, then see which files it's trying to access at launch. FileMon will then log the program activity and show you everything it's trying to access.

bakemono wrote on 2025-10-29, 08:43:

maybe check the registry to see what it's trying to run at startup time. software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run (or something like that)

Yep, that's a great idea. If you're getting the error at boot, it's most likely a program that's being run from the Autorun key. For example, if "C:\creative\mixer.exe" (just an example) is in that list, you would add "c:\creative\mixer.exe" to the FileMon filter, then launch mixer.exe manually and see what happens.

And related to that, try disabling the HPT controller in the BIOS and hook up your drives to the first controller. There are so many reports online on that controller being buggy and corrupting other devices on the PCI bus. If you rule that out first, it might save you a lot of time troubleshooting.

Just tried FileMon and when selecting Find and searching for ‘xit’ just gives me no results found straight away. With Filter I just get a blank screen, so it can’t find anything with that word.

I’ll have to try enabling every startup item and see if it repeats the error and records anything.

I'd like an image of the 'Xit not found' error message, if possible.

wierd_w wrote on 2025-10-29, 17:37:

I'd like an image of the 'Xit not found' error message, if possible.

Sure thing. It’s just getting it to do it. 😅 When I don’t want it, it happens. And then when I do - nothing. As I said before, if I don’t get that error, I’ll get the SB audio cut the startup sound off and then I get no sound until I switch the between the cards/audio device.

I suspect there must be a bug with the drivers I managed to find/get working, but I’ve no idea if there’s a patch.

Also, I noticed in FileMon that it was unable to find/load Rundll32…? And then just now got this:

Rundll32 is a system process for executing procedure calls contained inside .dll files.

THIS is the kind of thing that dependency walker is for, if you can trigger the exception.

This is one of those 'basically useless and unhelpful' error messages windows loves to deliver.

All it says is

'hey, some executable dll procedure made rundll32 real mad. Which one? Who cares. Which procedure call? Why do you want to know!? I quit!'

Which is not very useful, but microsoft sure seems to think it is.

Dependency walker will tell you the things you really want to know.

I kind of became a bit distracted with another problem. An old favourite game of mine won't install for some weird reason, so I'm trying to figure out what's been installed or done that's preventing it from working. So I had to make an image/backup of the drive so I can remove stuff to find the cause. It wasn't the sound card's drivers anyway, which I uninstalled. I've re-installed them from scratch, so I'll see if that error pops up again.

Ha. Okay, I did a fresh install of Windows for the benefit of troubleshooting this game. All I've installed are the USB drivers, enabled the boot menu, and copied/pasted Ghost. I then created my first image, loaded back into Windows, aaaaaand... greeted with the same error message. 🤣

So it's clearly not related to my audio drivers. So possibly Ghost or the USB drivers...?

EDIT: Hmm. It's done something it hasn't done before anyway. It's automatically installed some Yamaha audio drivers for my ISA sound card. WDM ones, which I don't want. So maybe that's causing it...?