Sampson

A person does have to stand in awe, after a while, at the seemingly infinite number of errors these systems are capable of - especially those that fit the category of "There really is no reason." I know your anguish; it is my most oft repeated phrase. What is peculiar to your "error" is that it only comes at shutdown. One would think that it should come up during a session of multiple programs being opened where memory is constrained more stringently. Since you have plenty of hard disk space and your defraggers would have cleared the way for a contiguous (semi-contiguous?)pagefile, it may not be that your settings have anything to do with the problem (famous last words). First, I will say that 256mb of Ram is adequate, but you should consider increasing this. Are you running large databases with multiple indexes? How many programs do you run at the same time? I am asking this just to see how you are using the machine and if there is some program that is not releasing its memory to the pool for re-use. In Windows Explorer do a find on *.tmp . How many of these do you find? Under c:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Local Settings\Temp there should be at least one file that might say ~DF****.tmp where * stands for a number. Do you have more that one of these? If so, how many more? In your registry go to the following key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management and look to see what the value is for ClearPageFileAtShutdown. Most of the time its REG_DWORD is set to 0. Setting it to 1 will force the machine to clear the pagefile at shutdown. (Remember all the provisos about playing around in the Registry - back it up - and don't play with it at all if you don't feel comfortable) Finally, look in your device manager and see if there are any conflicts. Believe it or not I had the floppy fighting with a network driver that messed up one of my machines. Lets leave it at that to see what you find out.

You're right. Looked it up and plain as day, it says that it cannot be automated. I use O&O Defrag 2000. http://www.oosoft.de/english/products/oodefragv4/index.html It has a scheduler built into it. It is a free download. If you buy it, it gives you more flexibility in defragmenting by date, access, name, etc. But the free download has pretty much everything built in it. I don't work for these folks. Sorry for the bad info.

Use the Scheduler. Start - Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Scheduled Tasks. Drop Defrag into the schedular and tell it when.

Netscape and Opera are browsers. While they have email components, you are not limited to them, nor do you ever have to use them. There are email programs, many are shareware, that you might find easier to use. But, if you have a Windows machine, you have Outlook Express as a given. Almost every email service gives a step by step instruction on how to use it. It's there so experiment with it. In Outlook Express, each email service you have is called an account. As far as the wizards, forget the names. You will usually need only four pieces of information - 1)your email address (always has the @ sign in it), 2)the password for the email address, 3) the incoming server parameter (pop), and 4)the outgoing server (smtp) parameter. Numbers 1 and 2 should be no challenge to you. Numbers 3 and 4 are the confusing part because every email server wishes to be addressed differently. Ususally on the website of the service, they will provide the parameters. For example, for Verizon, if you are on the Atlantic bell system, the incoming (pop) might be mailbox.atlanticbell.net or is could be mail.verizon.net. The provider will give you the parameter. For the outgoing server (smtp) it might be smtp.verizon.net. How you address the server can only be known if you look it up at the website providing the service. For every email account you have, how you address the server for that account will be specific to it. The last thing you need to know is the Connection. In your case because it is DSL, your default account is the one you have with Verizon and you would choose Local Area Lan. If you have other accounts, you can add them, giving the address, password, the specific incoming and outgoing servers, but for connectivity, choose any open connection (not dialup) We you seek your email, it will first go to Verizon, then to every account listed one after another through the original Verizon connection. This is probably as clear as mud. But experiment with Outlook express, it isn't rocket science. (It is just as confusing though at times as you noted.)

Murphy's law at its best. The answer is yes you should be able to reinstall without reformatting. Disconnect your Zip drive for sure. You may have to reinstall some of your programs. XP may install its generic Nvidia drivers and you may want to reinstall the software for your Asus card later. Anyway. Boot from your CD as before. You’ll want to recover your current Windows XP data, so type r to select the repair option. When the Welcome to Microsoft screen appears, click the green arrow icon at the bottom of the screen to continue. Then follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation. When you finish. You should be up and running. Go to your Device Manager to make sure that you have no conflicts or exclamation points. You probably won't, but it is best to check. Could a virus have done this? Possibly but not probable. VIA chipset? Possibly. They have given some a lot of trouble. I wouldn't be too quick to lay blame at anyone's door. VIA sometimes has trouble with many devices on the same IRQ. My personal philosophy about installing new drivers is - don't if things are working fine. It is good to download the drivers from the manufacturer's website to keep on hand in case you run into a problem.

Well, the easy answer to your question is that Microsoft (10 ton gorilla here) says that it is better. Are you going to argue with the folks who make the exclusive system? I am not trying to be cynical but one day it will quit supporting W2K before it does XP. There are apparently hooks built into the GUI of XP that will enable multimedia and streaming media to perform in a way different than today. These may not be made available to W2K. This depends on Redmond. I don't like fixing things if they are not broken. W2k performs admirably. Anyone using it and is satisfied, should best leave things alone. If you're getting a new computer, best to go with XP; it is the immediate future.

Does it give you a message on the screen and what is it? Easiest thing is to make sure the USB cable to the Zip drive is plugged in. Change the USB port, to see if that helps. Disconnect it to see if XP will by-pass it. If none of the easy things work, then you might have to rename the iomdisk.sys You can go into your BIOS and change the boot drive to CD. Put your XP disk in your CD. You will be given some choices like install XP or fix. You will eventually be given a C:\ prompt. You will have to maneuver to the subdirectory (usually c:\winnt\system32) where iomdisk.sys probably resides. Rename it, then reboot. Here's the problem. Sometimes removing the driver will let you reboot, and sometimes it gets you into a deeper hole especially if XP is confused and thinks your Zip drive is a hard disk. So, you may have to reinstall XP anyway. What were the last things you were doing before you logged off? Had installed new software?

What things do you have loaded in the Task Bar? Do you have some transparency tweeks on your Desktop? Do you have programs driving your sound card or video card that are running in the Task Bar? Do you have a device hooked to a USB port? What kind of mouse are you using - standard PS/2 or something else? Winamp, Real Player and Quicktime run processes in the background without putting an icon in the Task Tray, are these installed on your machine? Are there any conflicts in your Device Manager? What kind of hard drive do you have - some seagates do no play happily with XP? Do you have anything like Norton's System Mananger installed? What virus software are you using? Are your network drivers up to date? Obviously, I don't know of a piece of Software that can do what you are seeking. These are some of the standard processes that could contribute to high cpu usage in idle time.

Have you run Adaware to see if some kind of spyware is running in the background?

I suspect that because MusicMatch JukeBox is calling on several processes that invoke your audio card, CD access, or sometimes even modem-internet communication, ending it, will not stop the others from terminating. Once set in motion, they will happily task away until you stop them. I know this will sound a little offbeat, because I don't know another way of terminating a task than through the task manager. But, some pop up stoppers, like NoAds, will list all of the currently open windows on the Screen. These will include Applications as well as popup ads. So, if you are running Word, it will be listed in the "Currently Open Windows" box. If you ask it to "Add Word to Target", it will remove it from the screen and end its task. You could try it with MusicMatch to see if it will knock it down, then you could bring up the task manager and go after any process that may still be running that MusicMatch put in motion. Once you are stable, you can bring up NoAds again and Remove MusicMatch as a Target. As I said this is offbeat. But nothing else has worked. (NoAds is free www.SouthBayPC.com)

It seems Microsoft has heard about your problem: http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q284383 "This behavior can occur if your Outlook profile contains a Hotmail account and you start Outlook when the Hotmail server is slow or not responding. Though it seems that Outlook is not responding, the program is fully functional. When the Hotmail server starts responding, the Hotmail e-mail account and folder list become available. WORKAROUND To work around this issue, after opening Outlook, do not immediately synchronize the Hotmail folder list by clicking the list or Send/Receive , but allow the automatic synchronization request to arrive. The first instance of synchronization may be slow, but subsequent synchronizations will be timely." Interesting Workaround they suggest wouldn't you say? I don't know if this will help, but you could start Outlook with the / Safe switch which starts Outlook without some gadgets like panes and toolbar modifications. It cuts down a little overhead. Does Messenger kick itself in when your Outlook comes up? You can disable it if you don't use it for messenging. This really doesn't slow things down but it is a nuisance and another task. Hope this will help.

Harry, it has been a distinct privilege to see a true master at work, so I won't count the time in these threads wasted. But, I think these two threads need to come to a close. Love your humor.

I've never had explorer.exe crash. I've had programs stop responding and had to end their task in the Task Manager. If explorer.exe goes down, I would think it would be better to reboot since any process initialized at bootup remains in the security context of the initial bootup. Log back off and then on may not necessarily put those processes under control again

I am pretty sure that you're right Harry. We are probably seeing the Registry and userprofiles beginning to corrupt as the Hard Disk begins to fail in relation to strange voltage settings and CPU miscues and the many reboots. Thanks for the compliment, but I must tell you that your advice has been right on the money and would save this guy a lot of money if he'd use it.

Let me make sure what you did. I did not ask yout to Move them back to the Start Menu\Program directory. What I asked you to do was Right click on the Start Button. Click on Open. You should see the Programs folder. Double click on it. It should be empty. Now, drag the folders in the Windows Explorer window (under Holder folder but not Holder folder itself) into the Programs folder that is empty. You can drag them one at a time or all at once. There is a difference in the two procedures. If you simply moved them back through Windows Explorer, this does not update the Registry. You would have to reboot to have it do that. If you did the procedure the way it was outlined it should update the registry immediately. These would be two keys you can look at: Computer\HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\Start Menu\Programs\ Computer\HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders There are other keys under HKLM and those that are appropriate to %UserProfile% Have you been using some Registry cleaner that is deleting keys?

Ok, we do it the drawn out way. Start Windows Explorer. Go to a different partition on your hard drive. Create a new folder called Holder. Then, go to your partition that holds the startmenu - it should be something like c:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Start Menu\Programs. Underneath programs are all the folders that are supposed to be in your Programs folder. Hold down CTRL and left click on each folder underneath the Program folder (but not Program itself). Once they are all selected, Move (not copy) them to the new Holder folder. While still in Windows Explorer switch to the Holder folder and make sure all of the folders moved there. Don't close Windows explorer yet. Now right click on the Start Button. Click on Open. You should see the Programs folder. Double click on it. It should be empty. Now, drag the folders in the Windows Explorer window (under Holder folder but not Holder folder itself) into the Programs folder that is empty. You can drag them one at a time or all at once. Close the Programs folder and the start menu. When you click on the start button again and go to Programs - your programs titles should be back. I am presuming that the .lnk files were in the folders. If so, you can then run the programs.

No, you boot from the CD. Go into your Bios. It allows you to choose to boot from your Hard Drive, Floppy or CD. Choose boot from CD. Put you XP CD in the CD and it will boot. You will be given a choice to reinstall or fix something from the console. Eventually, you will be given a C:\ prompt and you can dir and cd\ or md\ just like DOS.

It surprises me that it does that. Anyway, many of the programs that startup at boot up that are not in your Startup folder (or startup folder for all users) are found in the following Registry entry: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. (There used to be three or four places in 95 and 98 so it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't more in W2K.) Copy and paste these entries with their full parameters to Notepad. Create a new folder from your Start Menu Programs and call it Task Restarts. Create shortcuts for each program you found in the registry. With the full path of the program plus the parameters you saved in Notepad, you should be able to fill in all you need in the shortcut you are creating to insure that it will be invoked correctly when you have to rerun it to bring back the icon. If you don't like scrounging through the registry, there is a version of msconfig for W2k on the web. Or you could use System Mechanic (www.iolo.com) which has a Startup Manager and would find all those programs normally stuffed into the taskbar. Its a kind of kludgy fix, but it should work.

We need a little clarification here. Windows Explorer is one utility. Normally, it is used as a file manager, but it is really the power behind your desktop. In the Task Manager it is usually called explorer.exe. Internet Explorer is your browser and sits in the Task Manager as IEXPLORE.EXE. If your Internet Explorer stops responding, clicking on IEXPLORE.EXE would end Internet Explorer and should have no effect on the icons in your task bar.

Actually, you can; you boot from the CD using your XP systems disk.

What seems to be happening is that it is looking for the Glide drivers not that it isn't recognizing the card. One fellow who was having your same problem wrote this "As you may know Voodoo2s only have reference drivers in Windows NT/2000/XP which some games cannot use (or to be more correct find). Games which usually work with Glide in ME and 98 don't in Windows NT/2000/XP. This problem is caused by where Windows places the drivers (Windows NT/2000/XP has a different foldering system for drivers). Voodoo drivers are now placed in Windows System32 folder where in Windows 9x they are placed in Windows System. So to get glide working in Windows NT/2000/XP simply unpack your drivers and copy the glide drivers and place them into your Windows System folder, which is most often C:\Winnt\System32 (you may run a risk by doing this). This may allow some games to work under Glide. ..." Here are two web references to what may be alpha or beta drivers for the Voodoo2 and W2k/XP: http://www.ntcompatible.com/3dfxfaq.shtml http://www.voodoofiles.com/1622 I don't believe that the Voodoo2 is supported by W2k. Depending on your motherboard and how soon it will be before you upgrade it or buy a new computer, you might think about a new card.

This is a "trick" used to get Win98 to rebuild the start menu. Never used it myself and certainly don't know if it would work with XP. By the way, what were you doing that would make the item report empty? 1.If there are still subfolders and links in c:\windows\"Start Menu" that you can access from the Explorer, copy these to another folder as backup. 2.Restart the computer, and when you see "Starting Windows 98..." press F8 to get to the startup menu. Choose "Command Prompt Only." 3.At the c:\ prompt, change to the windows directory and "deltree startm~1". Reboot the computer. 4.When Windows 98 reloads, it will find that rather than being invalid, the Start Menu simply isn't there. It will then create a valid Start Menu. 5.At this point you can go to Start / Settings / Taskbar / Start Menu / Advanced and start copying back in the shortcuts you backed up in step one, or you can run GRPCONV.EXE to get your basic icons back, and reinstall or create the other links by hand to get your icons back. 6. Now you have a Start Menu again.

shassouneh, It seems that when you built this system, you were one of the fortunate few who assembled it and added feature after feature - DVD's, CD-Roms, various printers, without so much as a hiccup. Your first presumption was that there was a software conflict though all the symptoms pointed to a heat problem and with it timing errors. You were loathe to accept those diagnoses until some friend felt that that was the problem and this only after many posts questioning you. We don't get feedback from you as to what you are actually doing with the machine. As Davros says you keep rebooting, but little else. You answer questions but only partially. You've sent us two sysinfo.txt but I have no idea if these were produced from a clean install or that you simly removed hardware from the device manager. On the message boards there are numerous posts of your motherboard in combination with the 1.4 Athlon having exactly the same problems as yours. The advice there is better heatsink and fan for the CPU and better contact for the heatsink for the chipset. You tell us that you don't know the Bios version but it is dated 9/20/2001. There are some 10 Bios upgrades for this board on the ECS support website. Some of which adjust timing and stability and some of them correct certain readings like temp. Work from the ground up. Harry can't make it plainer. If you want that system to work, go step by step and build it.

Shassouneh, To have your name with the start menu under it is typical. Now, using Windows Explorer within each of those folders should be a .lnk or shortcut. Double clicking on it will bring up the application associated with it. If there are no .lnk files, do a find see if they have been moved elsewhere on the hard disk inadvertantly.

Use your Windows Explorer. Starting with C:\ progressively click on the (+) beginning with Documents and Settings, All Users, Start Menu, Programs Under Programs should be listed all of the Folders that comprise your Programs Menu, and within those folders are the *.lnk or shortcuts that point to the programs in their respective folders or subdirectories. If there are no *.lnk's or shortcuts, do a find to see where they were moved. If you can't find them, they may have been deleted. Do this first before trying something else like hacking into the registry.