Startup Error Stack - A Friend Needs Help :(

[mage1111]

A friend of mine has a major problem with her computer. Whenever she turns it on, she gets a series of error messages. The error messages are stacked so she only can see one at a time. She doesn't even have to start up any programs, and it appears at startup. She can move the stack down, and can play games (basic ones, like minesweeper), can use the start menu, but programs like Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer will not start up. What we would like to know is whether this has an easy fix, or if we should be bringing it into a professional technical support place.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

The error stack reads in this order, and after each .exe comes the following error message "C:/windows/system32/dsuiext32.dll - Is either not designed to run on windows or it contains and error. Try installing a program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support.":
---

hpwuSchd2.exe / bad image
SSBkgdUpdate.exe / bad image
Tpptd40nt.exe / bad image
IndexSearch.exe / bad image
Ereg.exe / bad image
QTTask.exe / bad image
BrMfcWnd.exe / bad image
BrCtrCen.exe / bad image
reader_sl.exe / bad image
CCAPP.EXE / bad image
osCheck.exe / bad image
PHPAdvisor.exe / bad image
iexplore.exe / bad image
msnmsgr.exe / bad image
btdna.exe / bad image
EasyShare.exe / bad image
hpsysdrv.exe / bad image
Kbdstub.exe / bad image
jusched.exe / bad image
wmplayer.exe / bad image
QuickTimePlayer.exe / bad image

The error messages continue on for what seems like forever. This just seemed like a reasonably long list.

 

[KSoD]

Is it in Windows XP or Windows Vista?

 

[mage1111]

I will check and get back to you this afternoon. I didn't even bother asking her what her operating system was! (I was helping out over the phone...)

 

[mage1111]

I just found out from them that they are running Windows Vista. Is this good or bad?

 

[KSoD]

Being Windows vista it makes the solution much more difficult. The only real solution at this point is to backup all personal data and reinstall Vista.

With the amount of error stacks that is showing there is no way to repair the OS. Something has gone wrong.

So find out if they can get into Safe Mode to start backing up their personal data from their user folders, their website bookmarks and everything else that they need. I would wager to guess that the system doesnt have the media but a Recovery Partition.

If that is the case they can restore it to default after burning their data or transferring it to a external drive. Depending on the system that would require either F11 or F12 to boot to the Recovery Partition. from which they can restore it to factory settings and transfer their data back to the system.

From there i would suggest installing AVG or avast for a anti-virus solution. Both are free and very good. I would also suggest a check disk with the /r /f parameters. This is to ensure that there is no bad sectors on the drive and if there is some this will fix them or mark them as bad so that the OS doesnt use that area of the hard drive.

Sadly this is going to be the best possible solution that can be advised at this point. Vista doesnt have a repair feature and the inplace repair methods mentioned online are basically reinstalls anyways.