Michelle,

I have worked almost exclusively in Novell environments my entire IT career,
and this has got to be one of the weirdest ones I have seen yet.

As I am sure you are aware, the Novell client depends on certain Microsoft
dynamic link libraries.  It is possible that some other program is
corrupting one of these libraries, and a reinstall of the client wouldn't
fix it.  Only an OS reinstall would.  What you need to find is the common
thread among the machines it is appearing on.  Is there any new software
that is being installed on them.  Or, possibly, did the machines this happen
on also get recent virus updates, or some other program update?  I know
McAfee's last update was an engine overhaul, and we have not deployed it in
our 9000+ Novell network due to specific problems (I can't remember exactly
what the problem were...  that's what they pay the engineers for).

One other possibility, though I am sure you have probably already checked
for this, is an actual virus.  Possibly even (eeeeeeekkkkkkkk!!!!!) a
network OS virus (I know they are rare, but they do happen).  Anyway, hope
this helps.

Kyle

From: "Michelle Thuma" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2000 1:56 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Netware login client text boxes disappearing


> Ok, here is a really strange one for you..
>
>
> We have about 1000+ PCs in our environment, logging into our Novell
> network. Lately, I have been seeing random PCs whose login boxes one day
> just show up with no text boxes. In other words, the novell login prompt
> comes up- with no place to log in, just a completely blank box. Now here
is
> the really painful part- an uninstall/reinstall of the client doesn't fix
> the problem. Neither does a whole host of other things I have already
tried.
> So far, the only solution I have been able to come up with is to reinstall
> windows (ouch). I haven't been able to narrow it down much regarding OS or
> client version. It happens on Win95 and Win98 (not WinNT so far), and we
use
> the novell netware client for all PCs. It doesn't seem version specific,
as
> I have seen it on ver 2.2, 3.01, and 3.1 sp1 (our newest client to date).
> Other text boxes on those machines seem fine (like the windows login, for
> instance), and if you cancel past the login box, everything seems ok
(except
> for, of course, no network access). It also appears to happen on a
> completely random basis.

<<snip>>

> Michelle Thuma
> ITS

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