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How to boot to command prompt in Win XP?

C

chrishall314

Junior Member
A coworker is having some problems wth some spyware program, and needs to delete a certain dll which the OS uses. He is running Win XP Pro. Since the dll can't be deleted with windows running, ths idea is to boot from a disk and delete the file that way. I tried this with a Win 98 boot disk, but I couldn't access the hard drive, and I'm assuming the problem is Win 98 can't recognize the NTFS file system.

All the spyware removal progams have failed to this point.

Any ideas on the easiest way to boot to a command prompt in Win XP?

Thanks
 
you can't boot to the command prompt since its not based on DOS, you can however boot off the windows XP cd and boot into the recovery console which allows for most DOS commands and gives you a similar interface.

 
If you tap F8 on system boot you can access the Boot Menu. From there you can select Safe Mode - Command Prompt which will not start the GUI but will start the Command Prompt for you.

-Por
 
If you tap F8 on system boot you can access the Boot Menu. From there you can select Safe Mode - Command Prompt which will not start the GUI but will start the Command Prompt for you.
Click to expand...

It does start the GUI, all it does is make the UI shell cmd instead of explorer. Depending on what dll it is this may or may not be enough.
 
Originally posted by: Abzstrak
you can't boot to the command prompt since its not based on DOS, you can however boot off the windows XP cd and boot into the recovery console which allows for most DOS commands and gives you a similar interface.
Click to expand...

Using F8 still wouldn't let me delete the file, however the above quoted solution worked perfect.

Thanks everyone
 
What was the dll? Another way of disabling a DLL is to do a registry search for it, and delete references to it, then reboot. That should keep it from initializing.
Or if it's in a Program Files folder, like Program Files/Gator, delete any mention of the Gator folder in the registry. That's useful if there's multiple files that can't be deactivated.
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7
What was the dll? Another way of disabling a DLL is to do a registry search for it, and delete references to it, then reboot. That should keep it from initializing.
Or if it's in a Program Files folder, like Program Files/Gator, delete any mention of the Gator folder in the registry. That's useful if there's multiple files that can't be deactivated.
Click to expand...

It was 'msg118.dll' We were trying spyware programs...which for some reason coudln't remove this dll. Not sure if he tried disabling it as you mentioned...Thanks for the idea though.
 
Generally even if the file is in use you can rename it, so next time rename it to something else. Reboot, then nuke the renamed file.
Bill
 
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