Recently, I bought a second-hand HP Vectra VL running Windows 95. When the computer is turned on the following message appears: ‘The MSSBLST.VXD driver not present or failed to load. Check your hardware configuration and then restart your system’. I click OK and the message appears twice more. Then I click on OK again and the computer eventually finishes booting. Is this error message serious and can I fix it? There are also other irritants, but I am hoping that if I can fix the MSSBLST.VXD problem then the others might resolve themselves! Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The delay in responding to your question is because I have yet to come up with a definite answer. A search of the internet has shown that many users experience the same problem as yours but no one seems to know why this problem is occurring. Users who are experiencing this problem have also attempted to delete all references to MSSBLST.VXD from their registry and other Windows system files (such as WIN.INI) but the problem persists. So, I don’t recommend that you try this. However, before we go any further let’s check to see if MSSBLST.VXD is actually on your computer! The first thing to do is to ensure that you can view hidden files and folders. To enable this go into Windows Explorer, ‘View’ menu > ‘Options’. In the window that appears, click the ‘View’ tab. In the ‘tree’ listing under ‘Hidden files’, ensure that ‘Show all files’ is enabled. Click OK. Now, go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Find’ > ‘Files or Folders’ and search for MSSBLST.VXD on your hard drive. If you do not have the MSSBLST.VXD file on your computer, you will have to extract a copy from your original Windows 95 CD. To find instructions on how to do this, have a look at the Microsoft Knowledge Base article support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q129605& and skip to the section for Windows 95. Should you not want to go to the trouble of this procedure and want a less technical option, go to the bottom of this answer to read about reinstalling Windows.

If you do have the file on your computer, another possibility is your sound card. MSSBLST.VXD seems to be related to sound devices, so the second procedure we can try to fix your problem is reinstalling your sound card. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Settings’ > ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘System’ control panel. In the window that appears, click the ‘Device Manager’ tab. You will see a ‘tree’ structured list of all the device types on your computer. Expand ‘Sound, video and game controllers’. Before we go any further, ensure that you have the Windows 95 CD, the drivers for your sound card and that you know how to install them. If you do not have the drivers, you should be able to see the name of your sound card under the ‘Sound, video and game controllers’ heading. Go to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest drivers for your sound card, or alternatively, you could search the internet for drivers. However, be careful if you undertake the latter to be sure the drivers you download are not infected with a virus or other nasties. Assuming that you now have the drivers for your sound card and know how to install them, in the Device Manager click on your sound card and then click the ‘Remove’ button. Once your sound card is removed, reboot your computer. If the MSSBLST.VXD message appears, ignore it, our procedure has not finished yet! When Windows is loading, if you are prompted to reinstall your sound card, follow the prompts. Otherwise, after Windows has loaded manually, reinstall your sound drivers. Reboot your computer again to see whether the problem persists.

If the problem continues, then I am not quite sure how it could be fixed, short of reinstalling Windows. Since you have recently acquired your PC, you probably don’t have that much data on your computer yet. An option would be to backup the data you do have on the computer and reinstall Windows. This would probably be a good idea anyway since it is a second-hand computer. However, unless the message at startup is really annoying or causing other problems with your computer, you may simply wish to leave it. Finally, please feel free to write in with the other ‘irritants’ you are experiencing.