The North Orange County Computer Club is helping The Gadgetress tackle the multitude of readers cries for help. NOCCC group has experts in all sorts of computer topics. The club, which meets monthly on various topics, has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org.

Question: Every time I turn on my computer (Dell 4550 w/Windows XP Home) I get a message in the blue top border of a box in the middle of the screen:

“SmartBridge Alerts:MotiveSB.exe entry point not found”

Then in the middle of the box I get the message:

“The procedure entry point GetProcessImageFileName W could not be located in the DLL PSAPI.DLL”

The box won’t go away until I “x” out of it or click on “OK”, then my computer seems to function normally. What is this trying to tell me?

NOCC: SmartBridge is a software package that runs motivesb.exe to send files to your Internet service provider (Verizon, Comcast, etc.) for support.

The problem you describe often crops up after a computer is upgraded to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 browser. An old version of a file named PSAPI.DLL located somewhere in the “C:\Program Files\???\Smart…” folder is often the culprit.

Option 1: Rename old versions of the dll file

To find the suspect file:

1. Click on the “Start” button and then select “Search”.
2. A window will pop up asking you “What do you want to search for?” Click on “All files and folders.”
3. Now, under “All or part of the file name,” type in “PSAPI.DLL” (without the quotes). From the “Look in” menu, choose “Browse…”
4. Click on the plus sign next to “My Computer,” then “Local Disk (C:)” to find and select “Program Files”
5. Finally, click the “Search” button

While that search is running, repeat steps 1 through 3 to begin another search. This time, when you get to step 4, drill down to “My Computer > Local Disk (C:) > WINDOWS” to find and select the “system32″ folder. Click the “search” button to get your second search going.

Look at the date of the “PSAPI.DLL” file in the “system32″ directory. If your first search revealed any older versions of that file in the “Program Files” path, rename those older versions to “PSAPIold.DLL” and restart your machine to see if this solves your problem.

Option 2: Stop Motivsb at startup

If you don’t want to go through the process outlined in the first option, you can stop Motivesb from running by unselecting it from the startup tab in the System Configuration Utility window. The program is not required for your system and network connections to run properly.

The System Configuration Utility can be accessed by clicking Start, and then Run. When the Run window pops up, type “msconfig” in the “Open” line and then click “OK. ” When the utility window opens, click on the “Startup” tab, find the line that contains “Motivesb” and uncheck it, then hit the “OK” button.

Option 3: Turn to service provider

Alternately, your service provider’s support group should be able to tell you how to fix or remove this program. It may be a useful tool to the support group, and therefore it should be in their interest to fix it.

~ Jim Sanders, NOCCC vice president

(Register editor Kevin Sablan contributed to this post)

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