msinfo32 - What's the story?

I copied my index.dat from the 'C:\WINDOWS\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\OfflineCache' to a floppy. Deleted the file and rebooted. This index.dat is not recreated as others are. I tried SI and got the Help and Support window. Copied the .dat file back and SI works fine again.

I suppose some programmer thought it was funny to have a needed file for SI located in an unrelated place.

BTW I found 19 instances of index.dat on my C:.

 

Sure enough. That worked!

That index.dat file seems to contain information on the location of Help Center files, among other things. Looks like a last minute addition to me.

 

I found that Spider v1.16 which I promote so often flags that index.dat file, so that is how I killed it. I have a back-up copy now.

What in the hell could be in the index file that the msinfo32.exe needs to open right? It doesn't make sense for it to read from there, does it?

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@Bill ~ How did you manage to slip an avatar beneath your user name?

 

Bruce

A contributing member can put one there with Arie's help. I sent him a picture of a flying owl and he changed the background so it shows up better.

 

Or, you can use a transparent .gif, like mine, and the background won't show up at all.