Virtual Device Driver Format in the Registry is Invalid

Error:

16 bit MS-DOS Subsystem
C:WINNTSystem32COMMAND.PIF SYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlVirtualDeviceDrivers. VDD. Virtual Device Driver format in the registry is invalid. Choose ‘Close’ to terminate the application.

-or-

16 bit MS-DOS Subsystem
X:Program Path
An installable Virtual Device Driver failed DLL initialization. Choose ‘Close’ to terminate the application.

This error occurs if the registry value VDD located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlVirtualDeviceDrivers becomes corrupted. To fix this, simply delete the VDD value in the above key and replace it with another named VDD with of the type REG_MULTI_SZ.

Windows XP instructions:

Click Start->Run and type Regedit. Click OK
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlVirtualDeviceDrivers
Delete the VDD value
Click Edit->New->Multi-String Value
Name the value VDD, press Enter

Windows 2000 instructions:

With Windows 2000 you must use regedt32.exe instead of regedit.exe. The regular regedit will not allow you to add REG_MULTI_SZ’s for some odd reason and a regular string value will not work in this instance.

Aside from that, the instructions are the same.

It also may be necessary to extract the original autoexec.nt and config.nt from your Windows CD, as they may be corrupted.

Click Start->Run and type expand x:I386autoexec.nt_ %systemroot%System32autoexec.nt (Where x: is your CD-ROM drive)
Click Start->Run and type expand x:I386config.nt_ %systemroot%System32config.nt
Click Start->Run and type expand x:I386command.co_ %systemroot%System32command.com
You should be up and running now.