Since moving from dial-up to broadband, whenever the computer is started the following message appears: ‘Cannot find a device file that may be needed to run Windows or a Windows application. The Windows registry or SYSTEM.INI file refers to this device but the device file no longer exists: vredir.vxd’. This message appears again with the file dfs.vxd. Once the message is closed the desktop appears and there are no further problems. The computer is running Windows 98.

This problem commonly occurs after changing the internet connection type. These three files are Windows system files related to Dial-Up Networking. When the ADSL software was installed, it must have displaced some of these files in the process. The Microsoft Knowledge Base article you found at support.microsoft.com/?kbid=166832 is very useful, and you should follow the instructions given within this document. The article outlines the procedure to uninstall and then reinstall Dial-Up Networking. In the process, the files relevant to Dial-Up Networking will also be reinstalled and the files which are missing at the moment should be included. Should you still have problems after reinstalling Dial-Up Networking, try running the System File Checker utility which will scan your computer for corrupt files and extract a new copy of the affected file(s). To launch this utility, go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ’sfc’ (without the quotes) and click OK. In the window that appears, select ‘Scan for altered files’ then click ‘Start’.