msimn.exe - Application error
Ken
I posted the follwing message to the Windows XP General
site but realize I probably should have posted it here.
Anyway, I sure hope someone can help.
Periodically (at least once a day)I receive the following
error message when exiting Outlook Express-
msimn.exe - Application error
The instruction at "0x77f58d2c" referenced memory
at "0x009b4450". The memory could not be "written".
Click OK to terminate the program.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in
advance.
Ken Marlow (Ottawa)
PA Bear
Help with Hijackware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/Darnit.htm
CoolWebSearch Chronicles
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html
Run these tools in the following order with nothing else running in
background:
1. CWShredder (fix all found)
2. Ad-Aware (fix all found)
3. Spybot (RTFM but generally fix everything in red)
Important: You *must* seek updates for Ad-Aware, Spybot, etc., before each
and every use, even "right out of the box". But even they can't catch
everything, 24/7. When all else fails, HijackThis
(http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/HijackThis.exe) is the preferred
tool to use. It will help you to both identify and remove any
hijackware/spyware. **Post your files to http://forums.spywareinfo.com/ or
http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=30 for expert analysis, not here.**
[Alternate download pages for many of the above tools may be found at
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm.]
Also:
1. Download and run Stinger (http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/); then...
2. Update your virus definitions, enable Show Hidden Files
(http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2002092715262339)
and then run a full system scan in Safe Mode
(http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2001052409420406)
with nothing else running in background.
WinXP Only (WinME similar): If this scan finds anything, create a new
Restore Point then Disk Cleanup > More options > Delete all but the most
recent Restore Point.
So How Did I Get Infected Anyway?
http://boards.cexx.org/viewtopic.php?t=957
--
HTH - Please Reply to This Thread
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE), AH-VSOP
AumHa Forums
http://forum.aumha.org
What You Should Know About Spyware
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/privacy/spyware.mspx
Ken
solution to my problem. I ran an updated version of
Adware and it identified 3 Registry Key and 6 files for
removal, which I did. I then ran an updated version of
the Norton 2004 AntiVirus program as suggested.
Interestingly, it identified 10 Adware files as
a "Threat" and highly recommended they be removed. Once
again I did what was recommended. Since doing the above
I have not received any Application Error messages. I
have my fingers crossed that the problem has now been
resolved. Once again, thank you for the sound advise.
Much appreciated.
Ken Marlow (Ottawa)
>.
>
PA Bear
Make sure you've taken care of each of the Removal steps listed for each
"adware" found on the corresponding Symantec page.
Make sure you've taken care of your System Restore files, too.
--
~PA Bear
PA Bear
--
~PA Bear
Steve Cochran
steve
"Ken" <ken-...@rogers.com> wrote in message news:20f1701c45a2b$2641b330$a301...@phx.gbl...
1. Don't open attachments.
Most computer infections are the result of the user opening email attachments. The attachment usually contains a virus or worm or trojan that infects the system when it is opened.
Because of this tendency of attachments to infect, Microsoft has now set OE to block all attachments. See
these articles for explanations:
Cannot Open E-Mail Attachments in Outlook Express After You Install SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329570
OLEXP Using Virus Protection Features in Outlook Express 6 (Q291387)
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q291/3/87.ASP
Note that Microsoft does not send security patches in email. See this article:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/news/patch_hoax.asp
If you choose to adjust OE to allow attachments, make sure you save the attachment to disk first and then scan it with your antivirus software.
The most significant thing you can do to prevent such infections, is to educate yourself on what attachments may constitute a threat to your system, and never open any such attachments, no matter who they are from.
2. Turn off Background Compaction.
When a message is deleted, moved or marked as read in an OE message file (dbx), then wasted space is generated in that file, and the folder must be compacted to remove that wasted space.
By default, OE turns on a feature under Tools | Options | Maintenance called "background compaction", which turns itself on if the folders in your message store get too much wasted space. This feature uses 100% CPU time and slows down your system, while it is active. In addition, if the process is somewhat interrupted, then the entire message store can become corrupt.
To prevent such corruption, turn off background compaction under Tools | Options | Maintenance for each Identity you have, and then compact manually and frequently using File | Folder | Compact all. This will make OE more stable.
3. Turn off email scanning in your antivirus software.
Antivirus software invades the Outlook Express program to try and intercept (incoming and, in some cases, outgoing) messages that might contain virus.
The problem with this approach is that the antivirus software can trigger the destruction of an entire message folder or the entire message store, when it attempts to remove a message containing a potential virus.
To prevent the possibility of such destruction occuring, turn off email scanning in your antivirus software. You will still be protected against infection. If you attempt to open a message attachment containing a potential virus, then your antivirus software will recognize that your are attempting to infect your system, and will block you from doing so. The best practice on the user's part is to save an attachment to disk and then scan it with the antivirus software prior to opening it. Messages opened themselves (if you have the latest security updates from Windows Update) will not infect your system -- only attachments.
You do not need additional email scanning on top of your system being continuosly scanned by antivirus software, so turn off email scanning to prevent destruction of your message store.
From a post by Frank Saunders:
Disabling email protection does not leave you vulnerable to viruses and
malicious software in email. It is a separate layer of protection in
addition to Auto-Protect. Auto-Protect scans any incoming files, including
email, as they are saved to your hard drive. As long as you keep your virus
definitions up to date with LiveUpdate, and keep Auto-Protect enabled and
set to scan files as they are created or downloaded, your system is fully
protected.
4. Recovering lost messages.
The most significant contributors to lost messages are described in points 2 and 3 above. Turn these options off to prevent message store corruption.
If you do lose your messages, you can try using my DBXtract program to
attempt to recover the lost messages. Note that dbx files are hidden in
Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/
Alternatively one can also use DBXpress, which is faster and more accurate than DBXtract,
and it also has the capability of reading directly from the disk and bypassing the file system.
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/
If you have upgraded your version of IE and OE or your OS version, and all
your messages are lost, then see this article (note that the technique in
the article does not only apply to the issue addressed in the article
title):
OLEXP: Mail Folders, Address Book, and E-mail Messages Are Missing After You
Upgrade to Microsoft Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313055
If File | Import | Messages does not work, ignore the error message, which
is erroneous in itself, and try one of the following techniques to get your
messages back:
a. Right click on each dbx file or a selection of them and go to Properties
and clear the read only attribute of the files. Then try File | Import |
Messages again.
b. Import the dbx files individually. See the last paragraph on this page
for how to do that:
http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx
c. As a last resort use DBXtract or DBXpress
http://www.oehelp.com/DBXtract/ or http://www.oehelp.com/DBXpress/
See also: http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/problems/bugs.htm#mailgone
5. How does one reinstall IE and OE?
This article seems to work for other OSs than just XP:
How to Reinstall or Repair Internet Explorer and Outlook Express
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q318378
See point 11 below first.
6. How does one backup and restore or transfer OE messages and settings:
See: http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/backup/index.htm
http://www.oehelp.com/backup.aspx
Note that there is also a link in this article to MVP David Guess's free
OEBackup programs (www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/)
7. Links in email don't work:
see the links on this page
8. Outlook Express is slow.
See the various performance issues and how to address them on this page:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/problems/performance.htm
9. Outlook Express won't start.
This is usually due to a conflict between what is recorded in the registry
and what is in the message store. Often, one can fix this problem by
deleting folders.dbx. If that doesn't work, then try moving all the dbx
files to another directory and see if that fixes it. Alternatively, see
these articles and also point 4 above:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/problems/performance.htm#nostart
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q245/4/19.asp
10. Address book information:
see The Windows Address Book
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/files/wab.htm
11. Installation issues:
Most of the problems with a faulty installation are due to other programs
running during the install and interfering with the updating of necessary
files. Antivirus software is notorious for this. To minimize such
interference, in Win98, WinMe, and WinXP go to Start | Run and type msconfig
and disable all startup items and non Microsoft services. Then reboot.
Then proceed with the installation. Startup items can then be re-enabled.
For additional info see:
Win98: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281965&Product=w98
WinXP: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310560&Product=winxp
Since Win2000 does not have msconfig, one has to manually go to this
registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
You can export this key and then delete all values under it. Then disable
all antivirus services under Computer Management | Services and then reboot.
Then install. After the installation you can import the key back into the
registry to restore the values and re-enable the services.
12. Screening unwanted email and Spam
Everybody gets unwanted email these days. Much of this email is either
trying to sell you something you probably don't want or else is trying to
infect you with a virus via an email attachment. What can you do?
a. Never open an attachment. First save an attachment to disk and then
scan it with your antivirus software to ensure it is not infected (make sure
your antivirus software definitions are up to date). If the attachment is
from someone you don't know, don't even bother opening it. Its not worth
it. See also point 1 above.
b. Screen email. Disable the Preview Pane (you can put a button on the
toolbar to turn this on and off). Then go to View | Columns and enable most
of the headers. That way you can scan the headers and pick out the various
obvious unwanted mail. Once you find messages that you don't want to open,
select the headers of those messages without opening the messages and
perform a Shift-Delete to permanently remove them from the folder. Once
they are removed, they will no longer be accessible, so don't do this on
messages you might wish to keep.
c. On messages left that might be worth opening, go to Tools | Options |
Read and check the box that says "read all messages in plain text"
(available only with IE6 SP1 or WinXP SP1 and higher). Reading in plain
text prevents any returns to the spammer's server, so your email address
cannot be validated in that fashion. In addition, it prevents malformed or
malicious HTML code from executing. If you find the message is worth
viewing as HTML, then you can go back to Tools | Options | Read and uncheck
the option to read in plain text only and then reopen the message to view it
as HTML (note that you can put this button on a toolbar with OETool
(www.oehelp.com/OETool/). You can also use OETool to view the message details without having to open the message. You can also use the "Compact Current Folder" button after deleting to shrink the file size.
d. If you get unwanted email repeatedly from the same source, you can set
up message rules to block out some of these messages. See the help file in
OE and also
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/tips/rules.htm
and
http://www.mindspring.com/~oe_oh/message_rules.htm.
e. If you find a message that is spam and that offends you or is deceptive,
go to Message | Forward as attachment and send it to u...@ftc.gov .
The US Federal Trade Comission is launching a major crackdown on deceptive
and offensive spam. Visit their site at www.ftc.gov/spam for more info.
13. Messages appear blank
From a post by Frank Saunders:
Several possible causes and therefor several possible fixes:
1. Go to Start | Run and type
regsvr32 inetcomm.dll
and press <Enter>
2. Go to Tools | Options | Read | Fonts and set Western (ISO) as the
default.
3. Clear Temporary Internet Files and the Temp folder.
4. Turn off email scanning in your anti-virus.
5. Someone else reported that re-installing OE using method 2 in this
article fixed the problem:
How to Reinstall or Repair Internet Explorer and Outlook Express in Windows
XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318378
Method 2 works on earlier versions of Windows.
6. Eliminate any scumware.
See
Dealing with Unwanted Spyware, Parasites, Toolbars and Search Engines
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
especially
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm#Coolwebsearch
Note that AdAware and SpyBot S & D will each catch some things the other
won't. Also, each needs to be updated before every use, even when just
downloaded. There's also a lot more to do than just those two programs.
CWShredder is also available here:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/cwshredder.zip
**Post your HijackThis log to
http://forums.spywareinfo.com/ or the Spyware forum at
http://forum.aumha.org/ for expert analysis, not here.**
Alternative download pages for Ad-Aware, Spybot, HijackThis and CWShredder
may be found on this page:
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm.
If trying everything at that site does not fix the problem please post back
in the same thread.
I've left off some issues, but I believe these address the most
common problems that users encounter with OE. In addition, please check the
websites of the individual OE MVP's that address other issues not listed
here:
Tom Koch:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/
David Guess
http://www.mindspring.com/~oe_oh/
Jim Pickering
http://home.comcast.net/~jimpickering/
Frank Saunders
http://www.fjsmjs.com/OE/index.htm
and my site at http://www.oehelp.com
If you don't find your problem addressed, then feel free to post a question
in these newsgroups and we will be more than happy to respond and attempt to
help. Just go to Tools | Accounts | Add | News and add msnews.microsoft.com as a newsserver and then you can address your question to the appropriate newsgroup.
Ken
the spyware that the Adware program identified during its
search of my files. I simply checked them all off for
removal when prompted at the end of the search.
Also, my original problem, identified at the beginning of
this thread, has returned. When I exited Outlook
Express after received a couple of small emails this
morning all was fine but later, when I exited the program
again after receiving another very small email, I
received the same "msimn.exe - Application error"
message. None of the forgoing email had any attachments.
Is it possible that there could be a conflict between my
Norton 2004 AntiVirus software and Outlook Express??
Thanks again,
Ken Marlow
Ken
Thank you for your response to my query and potential
solution to the problem listed below. As you have
probably read earlier in this thread, I ran updated
Adware and AntiVirus programs to identify and eliminate
and potential threats. Unfortuately the error message
reappeared again this morning when exiting Outlook
Express after receiving and reading one small email with
no attachment. As I have mentioned earlier, this error
message does not appear all the time but does occur once
or twice a day.
I will turn off the Incoming Email Scanning feature
within my AntiVirus program as suggested and save all
attachments unopened to disc for scanning before
opening. I receive very few attachments so this should
not be a major undertaking.
Thank you again.
Ken Marlow (Ottawa)
>.
>
Ken
shown below) as a reply to a message posted by 'Pa Bear'
posted at 6:52:14 PM on 6/24/2004.
Ken Marlow
>.
>
Robert Aldwinckle
> The instruction at "0x77f58d2c" referenced memory
I'm not sure that this is a crash that we usually see.
It looks as if it may be somewhere in advapi32.dll
What version of that module do you have?
The Event Viewer's Application log may help identify both.
You may find clues about its caller in the Stack Back Trace
of the failing task in drwtsn32.log
Open drwtsn32.log and find up from the bottom FAULT ->
(assuming an English version of Windows.)
Make sure that that is the crash address you are interested in.
Then page ahead to find the Stack Back Trace.
There are also occasionally clues in the next section,
the Raw Stack Dump.
On another tack you could use RegMon (freeware from SysInternals)
to trace setvalue activity. You would want two traces, one which occurs
when OE closes normally and then the different one when it fails.
Alternatively, you could just guess that there is some corruption in your
registry. Then you would create a new Identity or even completely
replace the user's profile.
<title>KB262398 - OLEXP: How to Troubleshoot Outlook Express in Windows 2000</title>
(MSKB Boolean search for
identity AND kbhowto AND kbOutlookExpressSearch
)
Good luck
Robert Aldwinckle
---
"Ken" <ken-...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:20f1701c45a2b$2641b330$a301...@phx.gbl...
ROGET
I read and executed suggestions of running spywareblaster, spybot and also latest version/updates of my antivirus (AVG pro) and though it seem to work for a day , the same "MSIMN.Exe instruction 0x77f83905 reference memory at 0x009a4420 could not be written" when closing OE application. I will now try the suggestionin this discussion ie
2. Turn off Background Compaction. I will keep looking at this post which i have found with very interesting knowledge & experience. Thanks Ken and all who made suggestion.
ROGET (Frenchman in London)
Steve Cochran
steve
"ROGET" <RO...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B2BFAA2C-A814-4D1A...@microsoft.com...