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April 20th, 2001 17:00
Boot Problems - GDI.EXE - What is it?
I'm trying to boot up the system, and halfway through the procedure, it flashes a quick error message that says (I think) "Error loading gdi.exe. Windows [something]". Then the computer shuts off. What is gdi.exe, and why all of a sudden is the computer not booting? I haven't installed any software recently, and I haven't changed any settings, it decided to do this over night. Thanks for any help.
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KayH
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April 20th, 2001 18:00
Hi,
Since you indicate that you do not know of any changes which have been made to the system, then try to boot up a few times to see if the system can get by this; sometimes this error will occur if a needed driver associated with the GDI is accidentally dropped in the boot process and another boot will handle it correctly.
If, after a few tries, the error persists, then one article from the Microsoft Knowledge Base may apply. If one of the fonts necessary to Windows has been corrupted, you can get this error. If the font folder as a whole has been deleted, moved, or corrupted, the error can occur.
Alternatively, the GDI involves any device to which the system can output, so your graphics card is a possibility, as Mary indicated, but so is a printer, and any other device you've connected to which you can send data. As you boot, you might want to watch the written result of the POST, looking for error messages having to do with included devices, and listen for unusual beeps as the POST proceeds which might indicate trouble in a needed device or on the motherboard itself.
I have not heard of this behavior being caused by a virus or worm, but if you have made a rescue set of disks for your AV program, you may wish to check the system out to be sure one is not involved.
As she said, dependent upon the cause, as safe mode boot is an avenue to explore. If it is not possible, then you need to look into other possibilities.
Kay