Windows XP Problem

[Sejah Haversh]

Okay, I've always been a firm advocate of how good Windows XP is, and how stable and secure.

Well, today I have had my first major problem. Twice now, a small box has popped up saying an error has occurred, and the system initiates a shut-down sequence wich counts down from 60 seconds, then restarts the computer. Now, when I hit Ctrl Alt Del, the task manager window only flashes on for a moment, and then goes away, making it unuseable..

Does anybody know of anything that might fix this other than a full system reinstall? I really don't want to have to do that, but I will if I have to.

[imported_Marcus]

!

I have never seen that before as an error result. Now, it could be a startup/shutdown option from the System icon in Cortrol panel, but the last time I saw soem thing like that, it was part of a SMS enviroment and a remote shutdown command.

I bet it's somethign to do with critical error handling - check in startup/shoutdown. If not there, put the latest service pack (SP2?) on it.

[Titus]

Insert standard comment about how XP sucks and 2000 (or even 98, gasp) or a Unix derivative would be so much better here.

[Charley]

Originally posted by Titus
Insert standard comment about how XP sucks and 2000 (or even 98, gasp) or a Unix derivative would be so much better here.

Are you high?

[Titus]

Nope. As soon as I get a CPU for my new computer, I’m installing RH8.0 and a BSD distro in addition to win98. Longhorn has soured the windows experience for me.

[Titus]

(note, when I get the money win98 will be replaced with 2000.)

[Charley]

I'm having trouble fathoming why on earth you'd prefer 98 or 2000 to XP. XP is the most stable OS Microsoft has put onto market since 3.1

I mean, 98 is deplorable. Absolute trash. It is only eclipsed by WinMe, or have you conveniently forgotten the "Random lockup" feature?

[Titus]

I currently don’t have the money needed to purchase 2000. Other people may not either. That is why I said 98. Why prefer 98 to XP? The beginnings of DRM integration in XP, and the heavily integrated DRM that will be in Longhorn sickens me to the core. I have XP on another computer here, and it does run alright, sorta. XP is over-priced, and simply a re-package of 2000 with a pretty box. I don’t want to be caught dead supporting Longhorn.

For stability, control and customizability, 2000 cannot be beat.

ME = trash, yes.

I have run 98 for over five years now; I have yet to see the random lockup feature. It’s stable, provided you don’t overload it with crap programs, etc.

To the OP, www.virtualdr.com has active forums I’ve always found help in.

[Figrin D'an]

Originally posted by Titus
I have run 98 for over five years now; I have yet to see the random lockup feature. It’s stable, provided you don’t overload it with crap programs, etc.


Then you are extremely lucky, and are by far the exception to the rule. On your next reinstall of 98, you may find that your luck will run out, and it'll start behaving like a drunken elephant running downhill (ie. BIG crash potential).


2000 is pretty good, and I'd likely use it if I didn't have XP. To say that XP is just a repackage of 2000 in a different box is unfair, though. That's like saying that 2000 was a repackage of NT 4.0 in a different box. Similar? Sure. Identical? Far from it.

[Titus]

Originally posted by Figrin D'an
Then you are extremely lucky, and are by far the exception to the rule. On your next reinstall of 98, you may find that your luck will run out, and it'll start behaving like a drunken elephant running downhill (ie. BIG crash potential).

I periodically do a reformat of 98, as it does have problems maintaining startup speed over a period of time. I won't leave it on 24/7, (waste of electricity) so I don't know about consistent uptime. It's not made for that either though.

As soon as I switched from IE to mozilla the amount of freeze ups and crashes went from one every two or three days to non-existent. When IE has problems, windows has problems. Too heavily integrated.

[Sorreessa Tarrineezi]

blech, I would never go back to 98, it crashed on me far too many times...never again...ya know a cheaper way to get XP is to go for the student version, colleges offer it for cheaper or at least they do around here......

[Titus]

But they don't give studen versions of software to non-students.

[Titus]

(Note: I'm not saying that I like 98, far from it. It does crash when you have a lot of stuff running, seems to have memory problems, etc. I will gladly dump it for 2000 and a 'nix when I get my other computer going again)

[imported_J'ktal Anajii]

Titus, shut the frikkin heck up about Windows 98 and Windows 2000!

You are doing nothing to help my problem, and in fact are only keeping me from getting an answer.

Now, does anybody else have any ideas what it could be?

And, I will never, ever run 98 again. XP is faster, FAR more stable, hadles more programs, and is a lot mroe secure. This is the first problem EVER I have had with it in two years, you can boil your head, Titus. That, and with 2000, I'd have to download umpteen million service packs, and still ahve to worry about other issues tat XP deals with for me.

So, I want to see no more comments about any other Windows programs, only help related to my problem!

[Titus]

Originally posted by Titus
To the OP, www.virtualdr.com has active forums I’ve always found help in.

Posted a place to find help, a place I have often found help with.


No need to fly off the handle. Now, if I continued to talk about different OS' after you asked me not to, then you could justify yelling.

[Titus]

As an addendum, if XP is truly as stable and bug free as people believe, I doubt you’ll get much help on any RP’ing board.

[edited in]

*cracks knuckles*

Questions:

What were you doing when the error occurred?
What exactly did it say?
Have you performed a re-boot? If not able to do that, then…
Have you tried a cold-boot? (pulling the plug)

[imported_J'ktal Anajii]

I know people here know more about it than I do, Titus, that's why I asked here.

Once I was simply surfing this site when it happened, and the second time I was listenign to music through my computer.

I cannot recall exactly what it said, other than it said something about a Critical Error and that it would shut the system down in sixty seconds, and displayed a countdown timer. When the counter hit, it automatically shut down, and re-started the system.

I have since been able to re-boot, and also did a hard boot as well.

Since then, I have not had the shut-down error occurr, but my task manager window still refuses to remain open for more than just a split second.

And the reason I yelled at you was because you seemed intent on not only ignoring the question posed by me, and instead argued with others, also preventing them from helping me. I really don't care if you use another system, but this is the one I like, I prefer, and have had the least trouble with. This computer has remained stable far longer than any other I have ever dealt with, including several run on other OS'es by a friend of mine who is a network admin for a rahter large school district, or the one manned by my buddy who went to DeVry.

[Titus]

This (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/support/EE_winxppro.asp) would be good if you ever have the error again, and manage to grab its name.

http://theeldergeek.com/enable_disable_task_manager.htm
Regestry edit to enable/disable the task manager, should give it a try before you try anything drastic like a reformat.

This (http://discussions.virtualdr.com/showthread.php?threadid=138197&highlight=task+manager) sounds similar to the problem you have.

That’s what I could find with a search on google and virtualdr.com and the microsoft knowledge base.

Hope it helps.

As for stability, XP is stable, I’ll admit that. It is more secure, and is a great improvement over 98. However, the DRM issues with XP, and the documents about Longhorn (the next windows) have made me very leery of Windows, and Microsoft in general and as such I will no longer support them with my money. My apologies if it seemed like I was hijacking your thread.

[imported_J'ktal Anajii]

Thanks, I'll look these over.

[TheHolo.Net]

I had almost the same problem last night, and it happened to me like 5 times in a few hours. But, I never lost access to my task manager. A look in my system event log showed that the RPC service was terminating unexpectedly.

I'm not sure of it is fixed or not, but after I did a windows update and disconnected my PC from the network for a few hours, after doing windows update, it "seems" to have fixed the issue. I only installed the critical updates.

Best of luck.

[imported_J'ktal Anajii]

That's what it was, the RPC service. Now, if only I could get IE to stop having these ActiveX errors, I could download the new updates.

I love Mozilla, why can't they jsut let me do it through Mozilla....

[Shawn]

ActiveX errors might have to do with your security settings in IE.

[imported_Marcus]

As an addendum, if XP is truly as stable and bug free as people believe, I doubt you’ll get much help on any RP’ing board.

:: snorts in dirision ::

There are some very, very good techies here. You should know that by now.

Sejah, there is a way to get downloads via Mozzy, I'll just go recheck how I did it yesterday. BUT, I still think you should first install the latest service pack as that will more than likely fix any and all problems. Always, if your downloading the SP, get the network install version, not the Express install. Network Install will replace, Express only updates.

[imported_J'ktal Anajii]

That would be great, Marcus, if I could get them to download. but, it won't seem to let me download them SE unltil it checks and sees what updates I've already got. Therein lies my problem.

If you know of another place that I can flat out download the SP, that would be great. And, if you coupld possibly come online on AIM and walk me through ti a little, it would be most appreciated.

[Titus]

Originally posted by Marcus
:: snorts in dirision ::

There are some very, very good techies here. You should know that by now.

*cough*I'm new*cough*

Anyhow, I was referencing the fact if XP is ultra stable, the problem will be rare, therefor the logical thing is to look at a forum that specializes in helping people with problems. Looks like he struck gold though.

[imported_J'ktal Anajii]

Titus, I wouldn't have come here if I didn't expect Marcus and Shawn to know something. I've come to them in the past, and they've helped me.

Though it looks like I'm going to need a little more help.

[Titus]

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=25

Best I can do. Hasn't failed me yet though.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

well, ive got it now. happened twice already.

and the damn blue screen is popping back up again. i have viruses, i know. ive seen them, but everytime i try and delete them, it says i cant. shawn recommends a reformatting, but is there anyway i dont have to do a total reformat?

[imported_Marcus]

Service Pack install.

[imported_Marcus]

:: Thinks ::

This.... sudden occurance of shutdown popups is very, very suspect. I think.... we have the signs of a new worm.

Crap. Get behind a firewall real quick everyone!

On double checking, it appears there IS a new worm out there, exploiting a DCOM RPC call. Get yourselves updated and patched now!

[Figrin D'an]

Sometimes, the only way to completely blast a virus or trojan is to low-level format the drive and start from scratch. I know it sucks to have to do that... but it's the best (and sometimes only) option at times.

The only occasions upon which I have seen the blue-screen of death on XP were:

1) Java install screwing up web-browsers and causing crashes.
2) Networking hardware issue involving IEEE 1394

Both I solved, and have not had any crashing problems since.

[Taylor Millard]

Just a note, s'Il's using Win 2000 not XP

[Figrin D'an]

Originally posted by Marcus
Crap. Get behind a firewall real quick everyone!

Everyone should run some form of firewall anyway, IMO. Even if it's only a simple software one, it can save on some headaches down the road.

[imported_Marcus]

XP has it's own pretty basic firewall that's not bad.

If I'm right and this is a new worm, this could be an interesting next few days

[Strider]

There has been a new worm sighting at Sans.org Internet Storm Center! Everyone should get the security patch now.

Looks like a firewall is a good idea to!
Get Zone Alarm now.

And if you can't get the update for some reason, you might need to uninstall SP1 or do a re-install of Windows XP. I had a similar problem and did a reinstall to fix it.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

well, i got the service packs, and things are going ok so far; no blue screen or shutdown popups. like i said, i have viruses but i cant delete them, and i have trojans too.

and i know this is a stoopid question, but how can i get a firewall?

[Strider]

www.zonelabs.com

Zone Labs is the best that I have found.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

muchos gracias, amigo

[Shawn]

Everyone should reformat every 6 months to a year, anyway. :) It makes things run much smoother. It's really not all that much effort after you back up everything that's important to you, and you'll appreicate it after you do.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Ack! I have no idea how to do anything! *buys Morg a plane ticket to come out and rescue her computer from DEATH*

[Morgan Evanar]

I reformat every 3 to 6 months. I'm also part lunatic and have tons of disk space.

Is your comp acting up to De'Ville?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

No. But Shawn said we should reformat every 6 months and I've had this computer for almost a year and a half and have done nothing to it. :uhoh

[Morgan Evanar]

I wouldn't worry about it until something explodes. Shawn and I probably do comparatively unothorodox things to our computers.

[Titus]

If you haven’t done so, running a defragmentation program never hurts.

And periodic virus scans too.

[Denali Gue]

I dont know if this has anything to do with what you guys are talking about but a program called Peer Point Manager has suddenly shown up on my pc.

Both girls deny knowing anything about it but I do know it wasnt there last night and one of them had been on the pc this morning before I rolled out of bed, so.....!

Anyway, I had a hard time getting onto AIM and IE didnt want to load. I dont know if PPM had something to do with it or not :huh

Does anyone have a clue what this program even is? I was afraid to look at it. I went ahead and did a system restore and everything seems to be fine now. (Im running XP)

[Morgan Evanar]

http://www.kazaa.com/us/help/PPM_guide.htm

You have Kazaa on your computer. Which is now a spyware laden crash happy haven.

www.ad-aware.com go go go go go

Also, don't use IE :|

[Titus]

Originally posted by Morgan Evanar
http://www.kazaa.com/us/help/PPM_guide.htm

You have Kazaa on your computer. Which is now a spyware laden crash happy haven.

www.ad-aware.com go go go go go

Also, don't use IE :|



*agrees*

I've found limewire to be relativly spyware free as well.

[Salem Ave]

We don't even have Kazaa installed and that PPM thing was popping up every so often.

Is IMesh spyware free?

[Force Master Hunter]

IMESH is spyware laden.

If you want P2P, use Kazaalite.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I've really only been using it because it is so much more reliable as far as fiding rarer things.