Long shot this.

My brother's PC running XP keeps crashing. In Event Manager the activity that causes the problem is a program or something called "OMSCAN". The error message in the Event Manager is something like:

"OMSCAN service failed to start....the system cannot find the file specified"

The solution suggested is to disable the service that is trying to run OMSCAN or reconfigure OMSCAN.

MY question is - which XP service runs OMSCAN?

I've searched on Google and OMSCAN seems to be something to do with a Hewlett Packard product called Open Mail. There is no HP hardware or software on the PC so why this error is occuring is flumoxing me.

I've checked through Google, Experts Exchange, PC Banter, and the various support areas at Microsoft, and searched my brother's PC for files with OMSCAN and all permutations I can think of but have come up with nothing.

Anyone here got any ideas?

 

sounds like a anti virus software

 

> In the event log:
>
> The OMSCAN service failed to start...
>
> What service name does this belong to so I can set its
> status to 'Manual' within services.


OMSCAN appears to belong to the HP Open Mail server; is it possible you
installed something like that and somehow don't know it?


If it's not that, a guess would be (document) scanner software, such as
Omnipage, but again I'd expect you to know what you installed right before
this error started.

 

K18NEO - this is basically as far as I have got with it. I haven't installed anything from HP but the only thing that occurs to me is that the version of XP I installed is a DELL corporate one. I wonder whether it came packaged with some HP software on the assumption that the machine it would be running on had some requirement for it. The PC is newly built by me and has nothing at all to do with DELL and no scanner etc.

There is no HP software visibly on the machine, and nothing that mentions Open Mail and I certainly haven't installed anything. So my question is simply which XP service will run OMSCAN? At the moment the service tries to run each evening at 18.59 (info from the Event manager) which means the system crashes at that time each evening and then several times after that as it must be set to retry so many times after a failure. Its a right c*nt.

 

When it starts up, go to run.. and type msconfig in there, have a play and see whats on the startup, just be carefull

Alternatively, close your eyes and itll all go away

 

Tried that first. Problem is that its being run by a Microsoft service and I'm not too keen on randomly shutting them down. I'd rather know which one it was. Might have to resort to that if I can't find the answer elsewhere though.

 

Just had a couple of hours on it and the problem turns out to be caused by the TV Card I fitted when I built the PC. I understand XP has issues with certain TV cards. I took the card out and the PC is fine now. It still tries to run the OMSCAN thing and fails but it doesn't lock the machine up now. I'm happy enough with that!

 

start-run-regedit

search for all occurences with OMSCAN, and delete them

hth

 

I found OMSCAN in the registry when I was messing the other night but wasn't sure about just deleting the string! If it causes any more grief will consider it then!