MPREXE - Illegal Operation

Yesterday my Win98 Toshiba notebook started giving me, on start up, an error "MPREXE.EXE has performed an illegal operation... "

If you ignore this error the PC runs, but slowly. If I close the error box, the PC stalls - and in either case the PC won't shut down properly at all.

I thought it might be caused by a Trojan but I'm running Norton AV (uptodate) and did full system scan also with Trendmicro, also ran Adware and Spybot and Hijackthis - so I think I can rule this out.

If I boot into safe mode, I don't get the MPREXE error.

I checked Device Mngr and I don't have any hardware problems/conflicts.

Hope someone can suggest a few ideas to fix this problem.

 

MPREXE.EXE Network Interface Service Process
So i guess you must be networked.
Could try replacing the program ... Start Run SFC
Recover one file; MPREXE.EXE and point it to your CD-ROM Win98 folder.
The file goes into C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM
More likely something else, is your network work ok ?

Best

 

My network/internet connection works OK, although with the MPREXE problem it, like the rest of my PC, seems to be running slower.

I ran sfc.exe and it indicated that the User.exe file was bad so I replaced that file and thought I'd hopefully fixed the problem. However when I rebooted, the MPREXE problem was still there. I'll try replacing the mprexe.exe file and see if that helps.

I tried to do a defrag and it died (not sure why, maybe becasue of a bad mprexe???) and then I ran scandisk (thorough) and it hung, reporting that some other process was also trying to access the C drive; not sure what process this might be or if it's related to the problem with MPREXE?

Here's a list of the processes that are running and I presume everything looks OK --

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KERNEL32.DLL
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSGSRV32.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MPREXE.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\mmtask.tsk
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSTASK.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\PSTORES.EXE
C:\PROGRAM FILES\NORTON ANTIVIRUS\DEFWATCH.EXE
C:\PROGRAM FILES\NORTON ANTIVIRUS\RTVSCN95.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\TASKMON.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SYSTRAY.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\TPWRMGR.EXE
C:\PROGRAM FILES\NORTON ANTIVIRUS\VPTRAY.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\USBMONIT.EXE

 

Nothing on your tasks jumps out at me, although some are unfamiliar.
Don't know squat about network but it seems to me that machine is having trouble init network. Seem to remember it gets to mode where constantly poles network and slows down everything.
As i said i don't know squat; but like other soft if it goofs reinstall it. So try reinstall network software if you have it. As far as defrag/scandisk .. do it in safe mode but that probably won't help anyway. Sorry i can't be of more help but like i said ...

Best