Errors in WinXP

[Doot]

Hi, I have had WinXP installed on a new box for about 7 months now and recentley I have been getting alot of "This app has caused an error and needs to close. Sorry for the........" Is there an easy way of finding the problem or is it going to be trial and error? The main apps that cause this are Winamp, ABcommander and TMEGenc.

Thanks Doot

[Jüš† ä gü¥]

Originally posted by Doot
Hi, I have had WinXP installed on a new box for about 7 months now and recentley I have been getting alot of "This app has caused an error and needs to close. Sorry for the........" Is there an easy way of finding the problem or is it going to be trial and error? The main apps that cause this are Winamp, ABcommander and TMEGenc.

Thanks Doot

Unfortunately, this could be any number of things, and they are DIFFERENT for each application as well.

Likely, it is bugs IN each of those particular applications which you use---bugs which just didn't happen to get picked up by the more lenient Windows OSes, but which are picked up by the stricter WindowsXP.

I'd say a lot of this has to do with those programs trying to access areas of memory (for read/write) to which they do not have permission. That seems to be a common bug. (Or bugs due to certain types of alignment).

I do not think there is anything that can be done---except to run those apps on your earlier Windows OS (if you still have it).

Technically, you could find the problem via using a debugger on the running executable, viewing the assembly language----essentially reverse-engineering, and then trying to fix the bugs yourself. I wouldn't recommend this though---for several reasons.

1: Extremely hard to do----if the developers themselves could not fix the bugs (and they HAVE the source code!) then it is unlikely you will be able to fix it (you DON'T have the source code!)

2: It is usually illegal, although not always.

3: Your fix would likely introduce new bugs.

4: Your fix would likely only work on one version of the program.

[Bones1]

It sounds like a virus or a corrupted install of the programs or maybe bad RAM maybe even the hard drive. These problems are sometimes very hard to diagnose.

Do you have all the Windows updates installed? I had a problem with one comp that when it started it always gave an error message on startup (Windows recovered from a serious error do you want to send an error report?). After getting all the critical updates it went away.

Not sure what the updates it installed but it worked after that.

HTH

Jim

[nishark]

i just ran adaware on my cousin's PC (very badly maintained!). I found 124 harmful/new objects.

deleted 'em al like lightning...

she's apparently getting less pis$ed of with her computer since i did it. a lot of apps are not closing down by themselves and all other irritating jazz ...

might be worth the effort, might not solve ur problem in this case, but its worth it i'd say ... that is if ur not already using it

[VHockey86]

before assuming that there might be a problem with the hardware like Bones suggested i think you ought to just reinstall windows.

XP always gets quirky on me after ive been using it for more than 6 months without a fresh install

[Doot]

Thanks all for the help, I shall run ad-aware and also do a full check and unfragment of my drive. I could also try an install of windows over the one I have.

I hope its not bad ram I just got it to get rid of the crashes and errors that I had with my old ram and mobo.


Doot

[MrPurple]

Well if it was bad ram you would mostlikly see other symptoms along with the apps causing problems, things to look for is freezups, when idle, and underload. Alos if its several apps that are causing problems than you can eliminate those apps as casuing the problems, and turn to your OS. First run a virus scan, and eliminate that from the list. Runing ad-aware is a great thing, also run a registry cleaner, as that might hold some of your problems. If you have found no viruses, and after runing ad-aware, and a regcleaner you still get errors, than its time to reinstall the OS. Personaly I like to do a fresh install, and not overide since I am sure that anyproblems I had will disapear, and I have not wasted time.
Oh and during the reinstall if you have bad ram this is the mostlikely place you will recognice it.

Oh and almost forgot check your temps, i know its a long shot, but hight temps can sometimes make a comp do strange things, and it takes a second to check.

Good luck and keep us update on the problem.