I hate Norton System Doctor - code bloated P.O.S. that it is, and it's always causing problems on client's systems. Now I have another reason to hate it.
To be fair it's version 2001, but I think (from reading the newsgroups) that newer versions also do this.
I couldn't install a new hardware device on a client's system yesterday. Actually was re-installing the AOL dialer which is treated as a hardware network device in Windows, but this will affect ANY hardware you try to install.
It would hang during the "Updating Hardware Information Database" progress bar dialog that comes up any time you install new hardware.
Never ran into this before so did some Google searching. Unfortunately I was ASSUMING it was an AOL issue so all my Google searches were based on that and I came up with nothing the first hour. Spen another hour trying to debug it with no success.
Then I decided to do a search on "Updating Hardware Information Database Hangs" and hit paydirt.
Seems that Norton System Doctor creates - over time- THOUSANDS of zero size OEMxxx.inf files in the \Windows\INF folder.
Eventually you get so many files in there (tens of thousands of them) that Windows takes FOREVER to sort through them (which is what it's doing when that "Updating Hardware Information Database" dialog comes up).
Sooner or later you also hit the 65534 max file limit per folder in FAT32. Long before that though the computer starts running slower and you can't install new hardware.
This system had over 29,000 of them!
The fix is to delete all the zero size OEMxxx.INF files (BUT NOT the non-zero length ones).
To make matters worse, since this was a WinME system, and Win9x is notorious for having issues dealing with zero size files. It takes a LOT longer (and I mean A LOT) to delete a lot of zero size files than it normally takes to delete or move larger ones. Also Win9x throws fits when you try to delete a really large number of them at one time.
Since the INF folder is a protected system folder you can't just rename it and and copy the 500 or so legit INF files to a new INF folder, and it takes even longer to delete them in DOS sooooo....
Bottom line: it took me AN HOUR to delete all 29,000+ files. I was forced to do it in Safe Mode (normal mode actually became unstable deleting all those files after a while and Explorer would hang). I was forced to delete them 1000 at a time (any more and it would greatly slow down the process, and sometimes cause Explorer to hang). Windows REALLY doesn't like zero size files
Took 4 hours to do a 1 hour job. By the time I was done I was ready to smash the monitor when I saw a progress bar. Oh thank you Symantec..... :bum
