Application Error

WOWEXEC caused a General Protection Fault in 
module MMSYSTEM.DLL at 000A:0032.

Choose close. WOWEXEC will close.

This error appeared when attempting to launch a compressed file located on the desktop. Since Windows XP has built in support for Zip files (compressed packages), I wanted to see if WinZip or some other add-on software had been installed and became corrupt. Since there was a folder on the desktop, I simply right clicked it and picked "Send To" and "Compressed File" to create a file on the desktop. This new file opened up just fine with XP's internal Zip support. This is when I realized the file having trouble is ".exe" instead of ".zip"

At this point, I was suspecting spyware had done something to Autoexec.NT or Config.NT so I referenced my previous post: Autoexec.NT is corrupt and unusable

Unfortunately, those files didn't show any trouble and so I began researching online. Many of the proposed "solutions" were a touch shady, so I dropped to a command prompt to snoop around. Turns out the MMSYSTEM.DLL file had an old date so I assumed it had been replaced with an older copy by some software installation.

 Directory of C:\WINDOWS\system32

08/24/1996  01:11 PM           103,248 MMSYSTEM.DLL

Luckily, the compressed version of the file was located on the hard drive, so it was fairly easy to expand a copy back where it needed to be.

 Directory of C:\WINDOWS\I386

08/29/2002  07:00 AM            31,349 MMSYSTEM.DL_


C:\>cd \windows\system32
C:\WINDOWS\system32>expand ..\i386\mmsystem.dl_ mmsystem.dll
Microsoft (R) File Expansion Utility  Version 5.1.2600.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1990-1999.  All rights reserved.

Expanding ..\i386\mmsystem.dl_ to mmsystem.dll.
..\i386\mmsystem.dl_: 31349 bytes expanded to 68928 bytes, 119% increase.

This was a much easier fix than any others I happened across and it worked quite well. Be sure to make a backup of any file before deleting or replacing just to be safe in the event the new copy causes more trouble than the first. When in doubt, always keep a safe copy.. especially when working on the command line (no recycle bin!)

 

 

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