Setup Causes GPF in USER.EXE When Updating System

ID: Q118663

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Setup, versions 1.0, 1.1
Microsoft Excel for Windows, version 5.0
Microsoft Office for Windows, versions 4.0, 4.2, 4.3
Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows, version 4.0
Microsoft Word for Windows, version 6.0a
Microsoft Bob version 1.0
Microsoft Bookshelf
Microsoft Encarta
Microsoft Explorapedia: World of Nature for Windows, versions 1.0, 1.2

SYMPTOMS

When running setup, you may receive the following general protection (GP) fault:

   ACMSETUP caused a general protection fault in module USER.EXE
   at 000B:0097

This message may also occur during a PowerPoint Viewer installation (VSETUP.EXE)

CAUSE

This problem can occur if there is a line in the [386enh] section of SYSTEM.INI that reads

   device=

with nothing after it. It will also happen if the line starts with device, followed by a space, followed by other words.

RESOLUTION

If you delete the device=<blank> line or comment it out by putting a semicolon (;) at the beginning of the line, Setup should run successfully.

The device=<blank> line sometimes prevents Setup from putting the "device=vshare.386" line in the SYSTEM.INI. Removing the device=<blank> line resolves this behavior.

KBCategory: kbsetup kberrmsg KBSubcategory:

Additional reference words: power point powerpnt

Last Reviewed: September 10, 1996