PowerManager error on start. PWRMGRTR.Dll,PwrMgrBkGndMonitor

[Norway Pad]

As a last project before I install Win7 on my old T43, I decided to make a fully updated XP install, with all system software, and image it. Then I can keep this "perfect" image in case I ever need to run XP on it in the future. The XP install that was there has been there since I bought it in 2007, so it was no longer any good. The install disk was a slipstream, containing all critical post-SP3 drivers, and .Net framework 1.1 and 3.5.

All went fine until I installed the Power Manager, and rebooted a couple of times. At startup I get the error: "an exception occurred while trying to run C:\PROGRA~1\ThinkPad\UTILIT~1\PWRMGRTR.Dll,PwrMgrBkGndMonitor", and the battery indicator doesn't show up. During operation all behaves ok, and Power Manager itself can be launched from both the Start-Menu and the Fn+F3 combination. When I shut down, I get an error because "PwrMgrBkGndMonitor" is still running.

As a part of the troubleshooting, I installed an older version of Power Manager, and that worked fine until I installed the WLAN driver. Then I got the same error at startup. That was also the case the first times this error occurred: it worked fine until I either rebooted x number of times, or installed some other software. As a last step I installed the older version of the power manager, the Battery Maximiser, which gives the older interface. That seems to work well so far, except I can't load any power schemes from it. Then I get another DLL error. So something about the DLL handling associated with the power management seems to simply not work.

What can be the reason? Someone else experienced this? I know that if I uncheck the PowerManager in msconfig, I will get rid of the error at startup. But I would like the battery indicator to be present, and would basically like to find the reason why this won't work. In this other thread with an identical fault (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=99395), it is suggested to install .Net 3.0. But 3.5 should be backwards compatible, right? Or maybe I should try to install from a regular XP SP3 disk, in case the slipstream messes something up?

Thanks for any input!

[RealBlackStuff]

Don't know about the Power problem, but I do know that all those .Net Framework versions are different, and hardly any (if any at all) are backwards compatible!
Each version has its own quirks and additions that do not exist in the next/previous one.
Talk about bloatware...

[Norway Pad]

Thanks! I suspect we're on to something with the .Net theory. I downloaded the .Net Framework 3.0 yesterday, and planned to install it. In the mean time Windows Update downloaded the few updates I needed to do, as the critical patches were already included in the install. Amongst others was a .Net Framework 1.1 SP1 update, so I let that install, and reinstalled the Power Manager. And so far it has been running fine, even though I have rebooted 3-4 times. Let's see how long it lasts, and if it starts acting up again, I'll give the .Net 3.0 a shot.

At that point I will have .Net 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 on my machine. 1.1 and 3.5 came with the install, and 2.0 was installed as a part of one of the Thinkpad system software packages. Yes, lots of (bloat)software. I haven't really thought about it before added the 3.5 to one of my older P4 desktops and noticed that boot time went up.