MISSING Wsock32.DLL

General Topics
1

i PICKED UP dell lap top with win 98 at a garage sale real cheap.
It has problems an i loaded avast an cleaned out a dozen or more virus and it also deleted Wsock32.DLL and now I cant even get on line with dial up.
I have been trying to get it fixed but It won’t let me reinstall it as it won’t read the disk in the cd drive.
I went trough the help at windows desk below and it says
The restore from location is empty or contains an invalid character. Any Ideas whats wrong ?
Thanks Steven

Windows 98 or Windows 98 Second Edition
To extract files in Windows 98 or Windows 98 Second Edition, use the System File Checker tool:

  1. Quit all running programs.
  2. Click Start, and then click Run.
  3. Type sfc, and then press ENTER.
  4. In System File Checker, click Extract one file from installation disk.
  5. In the Specify the system file you would like to restore box, type Wsock32.dll, and then click Start.
  6. In the Extract File dialog box, type drive:\Win98 in the Restore from box, where drive is the drive letter of the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive that contains your Windows 98 CD-ROM, and then click OK.
  7. In the Backup File dialog box, click OK. If a The backup folder does not exist. Do you want to create it message appears, click Yes.
  8. When you receive an “Extract File” message, click Yes to restart the computer.
2

The better is always send the file to Chest and not directly deleting it. This allow further analysis and check if it was not a false positive.

3

I have Boot Disks available at MySharedFiles including Win 98 SE
You’ll find it in the BootDisksForMostVersions folder.
Hope that is of help to you.

4

Hi…

Is this a restore CD from Dell (for this particular computer) or a Windows 98 CD from Microsoft? If it’s a restore CD, then replacing the file will most likely not work in this manner, you might want to go ahead and just reinstall Windows and start fresh. If it’s a Windows CD, is it a genuine copy that you own, not a burnt copy? If not, cut it up and throw it away and go to ebay (or some other online store) and purchase a legitimate full retail copy. However, if the copy is used, I would ask the seller if, to the best of his/her knowledge, any installations of the OS on any previous computer(s) have been wiped. :slight_smile:

If your CD is genuine and you own it, does the CD-ROM work with any other CD, audio or data?

May God Bless you! :slight_smile:

5

You can download that dll file here : http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?wsock32

I tried downloading dll files here because an application won’t work without that certain type of dll file… I searched google and found that website, I downloaded, and the application miraculously worked and had no errors ever since… Just know where to put wsock32.dll and you’ll have no problems…

6

Isn’t this one of the files Avast stores in the chest?

7

i got wsock32 and some other file like kernel32.dll etc i moved them to chest i never touched them again because its was in the chest and avast detected it but i dont know if i should delete it from the chest when its say no virus well :smiley:

8

They’re there for backup purposes. If any of them in infected, you can restore the clean version from Chest.

9

so yeah i didnt need to delete them ? right ? if its yes then i didnt touched them lol

10

Right.

11

Good thx Tech you resolved my small problem :smiley:

12

I really do wish Alwil would get rid of this All Chest Files collation of the three sections:

  • The only area you should be interested in is the Infected Files section, this is where the files detected by avast and selected by you to move to the chest are placed.- The User Files section is where the user can add files they suspect of being malware but not detected by avast.- The System Files section is where avast keeps back-up copies of important system files in case the original becomes infected (leave them alone).- The All Chest Files collation of the three sections.
13

well i didnt touch system files even if they didnt got virus its there for a good reason i think

14

Well the reason is if avast finds the original is infected it can restore the copy.

Another thing which I find strange, is the title given by nobal1 ‘missing wsock32.dll’ and no one seems to have mentioned that if the wsock32.dll was missing, I don’t believe you would be able to connect to the internet.

Since this clearly isn’t the case or presumably nobal1 wouldn’t have been able to connect to post this topic ???

So I feel that the missing wsock32.dll might not actually refer to the actual system file but possibly to a malware file that has a location outside that if the system folder in Win98. See image of process explorer search for wsock32.dll and is lists the processes actually using it (system32 folder in my image example), so as you can see it is an essential system file and a large number of processes wouldn’t function correctly without it.

So we definitely need some more input from nobal1 or this topic is dead in the water.

15

wsock32 is the file that syncs your computer to the net… Its the one used to connect to the internet… Without this, then you would be unable to connect to the internet no matter what connection , whether it is a dial - up connection or a DSL or broadband connection…

16

another reason that why i didnt delete it from the chest lol