shutdown.exe - not compatible with the version of windows you're...

all of a sudden, while running shutdown.exe - which i've used for ages to restart my windows systems - now win7/64, i get an error message:

The version of this file is not compatible with the version of windows you're running. Check the computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program and then contact the software publisher

this may or may not be related to a BSOD that i got the previous night (which, if i remember right, made a reference to cachemanager.exe).

and if i try to run shutdown from the command prompt, i get:

Unsupported 16-Bit Application
the program or feature "\??\c:\windows\system32\shutdown.exe" cannot start or run due to incompatibility with 64-bit versions of windows.

as far as i know, this file IS 32-bit, and part of the OS.

something else has gone awry as well - quicktime gives a similar error message when trying to start iTunes.

so far i've run sfc /scannow - and poked around to see if there'd be some virus messing me up. nothing found.

suggestions?

zdoe said:

so far i've run sfc /scannow - and poked around to see if there'd be some virus messing me up. nothing found.

suggestions?

What kind of poking around. It would be best, if you think it may be a virus to run a virus scan. You can boot to safe mode and see if anything changes with your issue as well.

WAX

k. sorted. the system drive had gone south. but it did so by starting with that error message - which is not exactly indicative of a hardware failure.

for me shutdown.exe IS the normal way of shutdown/reboot, because i can assingned a hot-key to it.