Unable to use XP's Disk Cleanup utility

For what ever reason, I am unable to use XP's Disk Cleanup. It keeps throwing up the dialog asking me to send an error report. I never do, since I know they probably will not look at it anyways.

This problem started last week when doing my weekly computer maintenance. I didn't think anything of it then and just continued on without doing it.

This week however I am a little concerned that I am unable to use it. While I use CCleaner, I like the option to delete my system restore backups except the latest one. As far as I know, there are no other programs that will allow me to do this.

Other then doing a repair on Win XP, is there anything else that I can do?

I have done a virus check with resident scanner (Avast!) and online scan (Bitdefender). I have done adware and spyware checks as well. The virus scans turned up nothing and adware/spyware turned up the usual tracking cookies.

So what else can I do?

 

Well, usually when it spits out an error reporting dialog, it also creates event logs! Let's check those for further information:

1. Right-click 'My Computer'
2. Select 'Manage'
3. On the 'Computer Management' window, expand 'Event Viewer'

Here, we want to review the 'Application' and 'System' logs for events pertaining to your disk cleanup crashes. Take note of the event ID number, source, and the exact error text of any red x or yellow exclamation marks, and post back with that information.

(note: we are especially interested in events with cleanmgr.exe in the error text, as that is the executable for Disk Cleanup)

 

Okay, all the errors are the same in under Event Viewer in Application in regards to cleanmgr.exe.

Event: 1000
Source: Application Error
Error Text: Faulting application cleanmgr.exe, version 6.0.2900.2180, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x10001aaa.

It's the same for all of the ones that i can find for cleanmgr.exe under Application.

I was unable to find anything under System logs in regards to it, nor are there any yellow exclamation points for it either.

 

Faulting module unknown! Ahhh, wonderful. That's no help.

At this point, I can only think of two things:

1. Update Windows - perhaps there is a update to this program, or one of its dependencies (ie - maybe we can update this 'unknown faulting module')

2. Use Dependency Walker to profile the executable (should be found in c:\windows\system32\cleanmgr.exe) to see if we can find any faulting dependencies. Post back if there are any files listed in red. Some are not a problem

If these don't help, you could try booting into recovery console and replacing cleanmgr.exe with a known good version from disc. If you aren't sure how this is done, refer to this Microsoft KB titled, Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console.

 

Sorry it took so long to get back to you, I was out shoveling the 2 foot of snow we got... lol!

Anyways, here are the red files from depends22:

DWMAPI.DLL Error opening file. The system can't find the file specified.(2)
EFSADU.DLL Error opening file. The system can't find the file specified. (2)

These are at the bottom:
Warning: At least one delay-load dependency module was not found.
Warning: At least one module has an unresolved import due to a missing export function in a delay-load dependent module.



I am guessing that I need to reinstall Disk Cleanup if files are missing?

 

Well, recovery didn't work to fix it.

What else can I try?

 

Well, you could use recovery console to extract EFSADU.DLL from the i386 directory of your installation disk to c:\windows

As for dwmapi.dll, it appears that this shouldn't be on an XP machine. See this thread discussing a missing dwmapi.dll problem.

It suggests intstalling .NET framwork v 3.0 might help.

Have you done any Windows Updates to help with this problem?

 

I went through and tried to do a repair using my XP disk and now I have another issue.

I went to do windows updates and now I can't get passed installing windows installer 3.1 as it keeps failing. I have tried all the suggestions from a google search including the one where you rename a couple files, delete others ( I would give you the website, but I don't remember it).

I am on the phone and have been with MS for 4 1/2 hours to get this resolved and I need to bring my wife to work in 30 minutes, which means I won't get a call back from MS for a day or two. I will be running on a compromised machine I guess until I can get this fixed.

 

Windows update failures are generally easy to fix. What error codes are you getting? (they look like 0x00808978, for example)

 

I don't remember off hand, where would I look for that info?

Any chance you will be on in like an hour and a half? I need to bring my wife to work so I will have to get that info back to you then.

Also, if I don't patch windows, but have a hardware firewall, windows firewall and AV, will I be generally protected?

 

The error code will be on the page you are directed to listing your failed updates. IIRC, it is in the top right corner of the page.

I'm not going to be online much longer today I'm afraid. Probably back sometime after 7AM EST tomorrow. Maybe someone else can pick up?

AS for your security setup... I think you're taking your chances with spyware for a couple reasons:

1. You have no Antispyware protection listed
2. Your firewalls provide protection against inbound traffic only. If you were to suffer a spyware infection, and it was sending out information onto the internet, you have nothing to prevent it. (or even notify you)

Recommend you read this thread titled, how to protect yourself from malware, as it will have some excellent suggestions for you.

 

Sorry, I use Spyware blaster as well. I was in a hurry and just listed the major things off the top of my head.

I have tried a lot of the software firewalls and to be honest, they are extremely annoying. I don't go through a day without having to allow the same program(s) over and over. Since I am not the only one that uses this computer (my wife uses it as well), and she hates software firewalls with a passion and would rather I didn't have one on here. That's a battle that I prefer not to pick to fight.

With the current set-up, the weekly scans that I do with resident AV, Bitdefender online scan, Spybot S&D, Super Anti-Spyware and Adaware, I have only ever come up with tracking cookies.

I will look for those errors and post them.

 

I do use a firewall, I use XP's firewall. I had problems with Zone Alarm as well. The same things happen. I have been fine with XP's for while now.

Besides, ZA has a pretty large footprint and being a gamer, I tend to like my apps to have small ones.

As for my issue with disk cleanup, when I resolved my update issue earlier, my disk cleanup also resolved.

 

Just want to say thank you to Mada_Milty!

 

No problem!

What did we end up doing to resolve the problems? (Best to post your resolution for other users with the same problem to try)

 

Actually, the MS tech figured it out. The fact that I was unable to use Windows update after running the repair sort of became priority to me. In fixing that, the Disk cleanup also was fixed.

The solution was that somehow the permissions in registry got messed up and I needed to reset them pretty much.