start.exe... missing .DLL? (Possibly Windows Installer Issues)

Matrixhasu77

Matrixhasu77

2,491
As I am in the process of reconfiguring a fresh Windows XP Pro install, I ran into a snag. I am attempting to install my sound card (which may be replaced with a newer one should I decide to spend some money). However, whenever I try to access the my driver cd that came with the sound card I get the following error message:
"start.exe - Unable to Locate Component: This application has failed to start because .dll was not found. Re-installing this application may fix this problem."

However, I've done a fresh windows install with Service Pack 2. Any ideas on how to fix this would be appreciated.

I'm also happy to say that I've posted this from the machine that was reformatted. It doesn't have any applications installed at this point though.
 
Try downloading the drivers from the manufacturer's website?
 
cardude2004
Try sticking in your CD and going into the CD and starting the installer yourself, rather than having autorun do it for you.
Click to expand...

Yes, I realize I could do that... However, I'd like to fix the problem with the executable. It sounds likes it's possibly windows related since I performed a clean install of XP Pro and Service Pack 2.
 
It sounds like the autorun.inf file on the CD is trying to do something that XP isn't happy with. I would advocate a download of the drivers from the manufacturer's site as well.
 
I downloaded drivers from creative's website. However, its strange that I'd be having all sorts of errors from a fresh install of XP. Oh, and I installed Linux too. I can't wait to play with that once I'm done with school for the semester.
 
Ok, I'm still having problems. However, it seems to me that something is wrong with my Windows Installer because sometimes I can install programs and other times I cannot.

The only thing I can find on Microsoft's Support pages that pertains to what I think is the problem is this.

I'm wondering if the fact that I installed Service Pack 2 from a downloaded installer instead of windows update may have something to do with this because I've never had this happen on a clean install.
 
No one has any ideas on this? I honestly cannot figure out how to solve this problem. I've tried almost everything short of booting into windows safe mode because I don't know how to set that up with GRUB (I've got a Linux and Windows dual boot setup on my desktop).
 

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