Windows 7 Command Prompt Message Errors (cmd.exe)
Opening a command prompt in Windows 7 and running any command results in error messages such as the ones below (in this case a dir command):01/28/2010 09:06 AM The system cannot find message text for message number 0x2373 in the message file for Application. Windows The system cannot find message text for message number 0x2378 in the message file for Application. The system cannot find message text for message number 0x2379 in the message file for Application.For other commands it references "System" rather than "Application" in the error message. I've seen other posts online describing the same behavior linked to the copies of Win7 distributed at the Gartner Symposium in October as part of the general availability announcement (this is where I got my copy). Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
January 28th, 2010 4:20pm

Hi, It's far more subtle then that: 0) I have created (and then uncreated) the same problem by trying to run a RENAMED copy of CMD.exe from ...\system32 under win 7. ------ 1) In an effort to work around Win 7's "magnificent" user access controls, I have tried to create TWO separate links to the command prompt, and PIN them to my START menu: The first runs as a USER (red background) and the second runs as an ADMINISTRATOR (blue background). 2) This was necessary because when CMD is run as a standard user (from an admin account) it cannot access system areas. On the other hand, when launched as an admin, it cannot accept drag&dropped file paths. This inconsistency is a terrible nuisance for all apps. 3) The first attempt was to simply create TWO separate links to a single CMD.exe, set one for ADMIN and the other for USER, color-code the window background so I could easily tell which is which, and then PIN them to the START menu. 4) The problem was that Windows 7 "De-references" the links during the PIN process, and does not allow you to PIN both shortcuts, even if they are setup differently, IF they point to the SAME target. -- 5) I therefore created two additional copies of CMD.exe = CMD_User.exe = CMD_Admin.exe, Created separate shortcuts to each, configured the properties, and PINNED them to the START menu. 6) Everything worked fine, until I tried to execute a simple DIR command, and got the weird MESSAGE ERROR above. 7) Launching the original CMD.exe works just fine. Launching the identical but renamed CMD causes the error. -- Any ideas how to work around this ?! BTW, I do wish Microsoft made cars and SUV's, nobody would drive them, we could prevent climate change, save the planet ... everybody would walk !!!! MJS.
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May 30th, 2011 9:11am

Was this ever a problem in earlier versions of Windows?
June 13th, 2012 12:09pm

Explorer has never really been able to accept drag-dropped files from multiple users very well, i.e., dragging a file from a window from a user-opened folder into an admin-opened folder. It can be done though with a hack. What I have been able to do in the past, as a workaround, is hot-login. Hot-login is as opposed to warm-login in which is logging off Explorer and logging back in as a different user, or cold-login which is rebooting the system. It is considered a hack by most Microsoft professionals though is useful. To hot-login, then, while logged in as a user use the Task Manager to stop the "explorer.exe" process. This will close all Explorer windows and cause your taskbar and you desktop icons to disappear, but you will still have other applications running, such as your Cmd windows. Note that due to the user's credentials on that machine, you may need to do this using PsKill (part of PsTools, now a Microsoft Product), using the admin Cmd window itself. After doing that, immediately run explorer.exe from the admin Cmd window before Explorer has a chance to rerun itself (usually several seconds, though it might never come back by itself). Doing that should now load the taskbar and desktop back, and they may look different if you previously had them customized. This is because Explorer is now running as admin, as if you had logged into Windows as the admin account. But, part of the OS is also still running as the user, such as the server and workstation services, so you may, perhaps, be able to drag-drop files between users interchangeably, at that point. In the least, running Explorer as admin has its enough advantages, in some roles (like server administration), to be useful in and of itself. This all may of course change after enough updates to Windows security. Oh -- to access the user-specific desktop icons which are now gone from the actual desktop, find its icons in the respective subfolder in the \Users\ folder on the system drive and use them from there. It should in a \Desktop\ folder right in the respective user folder. User-specific Quick Launch icons from the taskbar are probably in AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\, from the respective user folder. Now again, this is a hack that I'd use as an Active Directory administrator. It is only needed once per Windows session, usually in conjunction with an AD admin account I had, as logged in and running Cmd via RunAs. Local administrator accounts function the same way with this process. I don't expect Microsoft to officially endorse this process, so consider it from one power user to the next as the need arises.
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September 14th, 2012 5:53am

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