I had the same thing happening on my work laptop until the memory cards were replaced.
There was also a virus on it, previous to that, that caused RPCC to unload, and therefore the computer to crash.
Does your PC ever put the message on the screen "Send error report to Microsoft"? If it does, do that a few times, and you may get a web page displayed that lists some possible causes.
Paw: You don't happen to have any unusual storage devices or network-shared drives on that machine, do you? When Explorer tries to enumerate the storage device list, it can be very picky if another instance tries to do it at the same time, especially if one of the storage devices or network shares is slow in responding. Usually, both instances just hang until the lockout can resolve itself, but it can take out both instances if your registry is set to kill unresponsive processes faster than normal. (That's a frequent tip in tweaking articles, and most of the time it works ok, but this is one of those cases why it was set high in the first place.)
Disconnect all network shares, unplug any USB digital film readers, external Zip drives, etc. and then try it again.
That seems to be doing the trick. I have network shares to three other computers and when I disconnected them, I haven't had explorer crash. Any registry hacks that would set it to kill slower?
Paw, try the following, it might help some. At least, it will make your browser feel better.
Repair/refresh the Internet Explorer browser by going to:
Start> Settings> Control Panel> double click on Add/Remove Programs> scroll down to MS Internet Explorer> highlight it> click on the Add/Remove command button, a dialog box will be prompted, click/mark the option button titled Repair Internet Explorer, thereafter, click on OK. After Internet Explorer repairs/refresh itself, you’ll need to restart the computer. This will repair/refresh your browser by resetting it to its proper specifications and it will also replace corrupt/missing files amongst other things too. Good luck.
quote:4. Change the Amount of Time Before Programs Time Out
When an application hangs and no longer responds, XP displays a dialog box that prompts you to kill the application, or wait a while longer. By default, the dialog box appears after the application hasn't responded for a half of a second. If you've built some of your own applications, this might be too short a time – and it can be extremely annoying.
You can increase or decrease the amount of time it takes before XP reports that the program has hung:
From a command line or from the Run line, run regedit. This opens the Registry Editor.
Select the folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER and follow the folder path Control PanelDesktop.
Select the HungAppTimeout entry.
Edit it to input a new value, in milliseconds. The default is 5000.
Exit the Registry. You may need to reboot for the new setting to take effect.
I bet Zixar is on the right track. I read something somewhere about the amount of time for Network shares to connect also,Pawtucket. It was some article about making the shares able to connect instantly without delay. But I believe the context was in light of faster startup time, etc.
Couple other things to at least be aware of. Overheating can cause funny things to happen. If it happens again you can check to see if it only happens after you have been on for a while. Processors are a lot cooler at first. One time I opened a computer only to find that my fan had quit working on the graphics card.
Also be sure to check Event Viewer. It might give clues.
If I know you, Paw, you will already have this resolved by now.
Stay warm!
John R.
PS - I gotta show you that 2003 Server machine I was working on. I finally finished it and am using it daily. There is good and bad. But mostly good. I'll take a few digitals. Thanks for your help with it.
There's another key in the same place called WaitToKillAppTimeout and the default is 20,000 millilseconds (20 seconds.) It probably won't have anything to do with your problem, but you can set this lower to deal with flaky programs that take forever to finally crap out after an error. 10000 is a good value, less if you're adventurous.
This is unrelated but Zixar you reminded me of another setting that sometimes helps a computer start up much faster. What do you think? Worked well for me in a few situations.
Ok, lemme see...
Run / GPEDIT.MSC
Computer Configuration / Windows Settings
Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options
(Whew!)
Disable the key that says:
"System Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"
Sometimes it can take a long time to clear the page file. In some cases it can even hang. Why not disable it? Does one really need that much security?
John: Yes, you can disable that safely--unless you've just worked on a bunch of stuff you really don't want someone to see. Nuclear secrets, child porn, that sort of thing.
I usually troubleshoot these kind of problems with the "divide and conquer" method.
Remove half of the devices in question, if still no go, then put these back in and remove the other half ... so forth and so on until you've isolated the culprit. Check for unsigned drivers and maybe remove these devices first. If the problem stiil exists in safe mode (does it? )then I would be looking at a fresh install first to replace the core files and registry, then if that doesn't do it, I would look at bad hardware - like a graphics card, nic, or even mememory.
In any case, IMO there is really no good reason to have to hack the registry to stabilze your system. Personaly, I would try other stuff first. Hack the registry as a last resort.
Also don't rule out a corrupted installation of Windows that it beyond repair or workarounds. You can always install another instance of Windows on a different partition to test. Install with as few add ons as possible. Then add other devices and software one at a time to try to determine which if any causes the problem.
----------------------------------------
Here is tip for you IT pros if you haven't seen it yet. NTLDR that comes with XP will multiboot Win 2000 just fine. But NTLDR that comes with 2000 will not load XP reliabily if at all. So if you install 2000 after XP on a Multiboot system, you will need to manually copy XP's NTLDR back to the root. Just boot in to 2000 and get it off of the XP CD (I386 Folder) and copy it back to the root. I fought this one for over an hour the other day. I couldn't find anything in the Microsoft KB that showed this. But I could have missed it.
----------------------
W32.Blaster is still alive and well. I did a fresh install of XP today. I immediately connected up to Microsoft after the install to get some security patches - with the antivirus and firewall not installed yet. I was infected with w32:blaster (Msblast.exe) within 15 minutes! It's easy enough to remove, but what a pain in the butt....
For anyone that runs XP or 2000. A firewall and antivirus are an absolute necessity these days. Disable them just for a minute or two and you can be infected. Worms, Worms, worms.....
Goey
"Most of my fondest memories in TWI never really happened"
Re:" I was infected with w32:blaster (Msblast.exe) within 15 minutes!"
I have the same thing happen to me at the office only it's some variant of FUNLOVE or Opaserve. I'm really curious if anyone in the IT biz has seen this. I'm running Windows 98 SE on and old Pentium I 166Mzh with a dial up connection. I've been doing this since October 1996, though I upgraded from Windows 95 to 98 about two years ago.
The experts used to say an internet firewall was unnecessary if only a dial up connection were used, right? I have found that if connected to the internet for even a brief time with no firewall, I get a worm on the office machine.
At first I thought maybe the infected computers pinging IP addresses were singling out AOL IP's since one dial up I use is the free dial up provided by Road Runner who uses AOL's dial up numbers. But no.. even when connected through the other ISP, I've gotten an infection almost immediately when I've forgotten to have the firewall turned on.
Ever heard of this? Are firewalls now always required? Even for dial up connections?
Goey, I have also heard of situations that a virus can be on a computer even after the hard drive was formatted and new OS was installed. Apparently formatting may not get rid of some viruses completely.
There is a way to do a virus scan by starting up the computer with the Norton Antivirus CD in the tray. It does a full scan on boot up even if an OS is not installed.
I think in some cases a virus can be in the BIOS as well. One friend installed a new hard drive cuz he was so infected. He got a virus again even before he connected up to the Internet! It was not on his CD either. Some BIOS's now have virus protection built into them but not older ones.
What are you saying? That I have a program currently running that is advertising open ports? When I have the firewall up.. I have no problems but when it is down, I'm getting pinged right and left and if I didn't have the Opaserve patch, would get infected in minutes.
Also, my firewall lets me know when programs are trying to access the internet. Most of the time it's been programs like pop-up stopper or Adobe Acrobat reader looking for updates but I caught the Opaserve worm (Puta!.com) trying to do it, too, so I knew I had gotten infected.
So... what's YOUR take on whether or not a person with only dial up should be using a firewall?
I never used to recommend it but these days I say everyone with an internet connection should use a firewall. Windows machines are just sitting ducks without one. If you have a modern machine it shouldn't noticeably drag your resources.
And go to http://www.grc.com to check your ports if you haven't already done so. You should be showing stealth on all ports.
And use Firefox or Opera instead of Internet Explorer as well. They are faster and more responsive with a dialup anyway so you will kill two birds with one stone.
Do those things and use common sense with email and worms and trojans will be a thing of the past. Until the next round of exploits.
I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
And use a router for best firewall protection. It is built in. Why install Zone Alarm software all throughout the system or enable XP's firewall or the invasive Norton Internet security when the hardware itself will do the job? GRC will surely report stealth on all ports immediately after you hook up your router. And they couldn' be easier to set up.
Sudo, why not use broadband? It is a bargain these days.
If you are on the Internet you should have a firewall. XP is more secure than 98 IMHO. But a common mistake that is made among XP users is they go on the Internet with full administrative rights. Not a good idea. Better to make yourself a user or Power user. Use the Administrator account only when you need to.
The blaster virus is a "worm" and does not infect the boot sector of the hard drive. It always comes in though unprotected TCP ports. Where is it copied to the System32 folder. It is then executed from a registry entry.
So, The only way to get infected is for the code to enter your system via a network and then be told to execute.
But yes there are viruse that infect the boot sector -- but blaster is not one of those.
Goey
"Most of my fondest memories in TWI never really happened"
Connect to the internet, go to a dos prompt, and run netstat -an and email me the results. You can run it like netstat -an > netstat.txt and it will make a text file of the results that you can send.
Also, if you have some free time when your in the office this week, get in touch with me and I'll do a port scan on your ip and see what's up.
Recommended Posts
Steve!
That may be a memory error.
I had the same thing happening on my work laptop until the memory cards were replaced.
There was also a virus on it, previous to that, that caused RPCC to unload, and therefore the computer to crash.
Does your PC ever put the message on the screen "Send error report to Microsoft"? If it does, do that a few times, and you may get a web page displayed that lists some possible causes.
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Zixar
Paw: You don't happen to have any unusual storage devices or network-shared drives on that machine, do you? When Explorer tries to enumerate the storage device list, it can be very picky if another instance tries to do it at the same time, especially if one of the storage devices or network shares is slow in responding. Usually, both instances just hang until the lockout can resolve itself, but it can take out both instances if your registry is set to kill unresponsive processes faster than normal. (That's a frequent tip in tweaking articles, and most of the time it works ok, but this is one of those cases why it was set high in the first place.)
Disconnect all network shares, unplug any USB digital film readers, external Zip drives, etc. and then try it again.
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pawtucket
Steve,
not getting any error messages like that
Zix,
That seems to be doing the trick. I have network shares to three other computers and when I disconnected them, I haven't had explorer crash. Any registry hacks that would set it to kill slower?
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Zixar
Paw: Let me rummage around and see what I can find...glad you've got a workaround, at least for now.
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Brady
Paw, try the following, it might help some. At least, it will make your browser feel better.
Repair/refresh the Internet Explorer browser by going to:
Start> Settings> Control Panel> double click on Add/Remove Programs> scroll down to MS Internet Explorer> highlight it> click on the Add/Remove command button, a dialog box will be prompted, click/mark the option button titled Repair Internet Explorer, thereafter, click on OK. After Internet Explorer repairs/refresh itself, you’ll need to restart the computer. This will repair/refresh your browser by resetting it to its proper specifications and it will also replace corrupt/missing files amongst other things too. Good luck.
Brady
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Steve!
Brady, not Internet Explorer but Windows Explorer. There IS a difference.
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Zixar
Paw: This is it. Try changing the value upwards.
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Brady
Big difference indeed! Thanks. I skimmed too fast, thus, jumped to a conclusion too quickly. Shame on me.
:(-->
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igotout
I bet Zixar is on the right track. I read something somewhere about the amount of time for Network shares to connect also,Pawtucket. It was some article about making the shares able to connect instantly without delay. But I believe the context was in light of faster startup time, etc.
Couple other things to at least be aware of. Overheating can cause funny things to happen. If it happens again you can check to see if it only happens after you have been on for a while. Processors are a lot cooler at first. One time I opened a computer only to find that my fan had quit working on the graphics card.
Also be sure to check Event Viewer. It might give clues.
If I know you, Paw, you will already have this resolved by now.
Stay warm!
John R.
PS - I gotta show you that 2003 Server machine I was working on. I finally finished it and am using it daily. There is good and bad. But mostly good. I'll take a few digitals. Thanks for your help with it.
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Zixar
There's another key in the same place called WaitToKillAppTimeout and the default is 20,000 millilseconds (20 seconds.) It probably won't have anything to do with your problem, but you can set this lower to deal with flaky programs that take forever to finally crap out after an error. 10000 is a good value, less if you're adventurous.
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igotout
This is unrelated but Zixar you reminded me of another setting that sometimes helps a computer start up much faster. What do you think? Worked well for me in a few situations.
Ok, lemme see...
Run / GPEDIT.MSC
Computer Configuration / Windows Settings
Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options
(Whew!)
Disable the key that says:
"System Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile"
Sometimes it can take a long time to clear the page file. In some cases it can even hang. Why not disable it? Does one really need that much security?
John R
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Zixar
John: Yes, you can disable that safely--unless you've just worked on a bunch of stuff you really don't want someone to see. Nuclear secrets, child porn, that sort of thing.
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Goey
Paw,
I usually troubleshoot these kind of problems with the "divide and conquer" method.
Remove half of the devices in question, if still no go, then put these back in and remove the other half ... so forth and so on until you've isolated the culprit. Check for unsigned drivers and maybe remove these devices first. If the problem stiil exists in safe mode (does it? )then I would be looking at a fresh install first to replace the core files and registry, then if that doesn't do it, I would look at bad hardware - like a graphics card, nic, or even mememory.
In any case, IMO there is really no good reason to have to hack the registry to stabilze your system. Personaly, I would try other stuff first. Hack the registry as a last resort.
Also don't rule out a corrupted installation of Windows that it beyond repair or workarounds. You can always install another instance of Windows on a different partition to test. Install with as few add ons as possible. Then add other devices and software one at a time to try to determine which if any causes the problem.
----------------------------------------
Here is tip for you IT pros if you haven't seen it yet. NTLDR that comes with XP will multiboot Win 2000 just fine. But NTLDR that comes with 2000 will not load XP reliabily if at all. So if you install 2000 after XP on a Multiboot system, you will need to manually copy XP's NTLDR back to the root. Just boot in to 2000 and get it off of the XP CD (I386 Folder) and copy it back to the root. I fought this one for over an hour the other day. I couldn't find anything in the Microsoft KB that showed this. But I could have missed it.
----------------------
W32.Blaster is still alive and well. I did a fresh install of XP today. I immediately connected up to Microsoft after the install to get some security patches - with the antivirus and firewall not installed yet. I was infected with w32:blaster (Msblast.exe) within 15 minutes! It's easy enough to remove, but what a pain in the butt....
For anyone that runs XP or 2000. A firewall and antivirus are an absolute necessity these days. Disable them just for a minute or two and you can be infected. Worms, Worms, worms.....
Goey
"Most of my fondest memories in TWI never really happened"
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Sudo
Goey,
Re:" I was infected with w32:blaster (Msblast.exe) within 15 minutes!"
I have the same thing happen to me at the office only it's some variant of FUNLOVE or Opaserve. I'm really curious if anyone in the IT biz has seen this. I'm running Windows 98 SE on and old Pentium I 166Mzh with a dial up connection. I've been doing this since October 1996, though I upgraded from Windows 95 to 98 about two years ago.
The experts used to say an internet firewall was unnecessary if only a dial up connection were used, right? I have found that if connected to the internet for even a brief time with no firewall, I get a worm on the office machine.
At first I thought maybe the infected computers pinging IP addresses were singling out AOL IP's since one dial up I use is the free dial up provided by Road Runner who uses AOL's dial up numbers. But no.. even when connected through the other ISP, I've gotten an infection almost immediately when I've forgotten to have the firewall turned on.
Ever heard of this? Are firewalls now always required? Even for dial up connections?
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Bluzeman
Sudo:
Sounds more like you have a trojan that has opened up a port, or ports, and is advertizing the open ports.
You can download a 30 day evaluation copy of a good trojan remover here:
http://www.simplysup.com/tremover/
Rick
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igotout
Goey, I have also heard of situations that a virus can be on a computer even after the hard drive was formatted and new OS was installed. Apparently formatting may not get rid of some viruses completely.
There is a way to do a virus scan by starting up the computer with the Norton Antivirus CD in the tray. It does a full scan on boot up even if an OS is not installed.
I think in some cases a virus can be in the BIOS as well. One friend installed a new hard drive cuz he was so infected. He got a virus again even before he connected up to the Internet! It was not on his CD either. Some BIOS's now have virus protection built into them but not older ones.
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Sudo
Bluzeman,
What are you saying? That I have a program currently running that is advertising open ports? When I have the firewall up.. I have no problems but when it is down, I'm getting pinged right and left and if I didn't have the Opaserve patch, would get infected in minutes.
Also, my firewall lets me know when programs are trying to access the internet. Most of the time it's been programs like pop-up stopper or Adobe Acrobat reader looking for updates but I caught the Opaserve worm (Puta!.com) trying to do it, too, so I knew I had gotten infected.
So... what's YOUR take on whether or not a person with only dial up should be using a firewall?
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Flay Minion
My unsolicited advice ~
I never used to recommend it but these days I say everyone with an internet connection should use a firewall. Windows machines are just sitting ducks without one. If you have a modern machine it shouldn't noticeably drag your resources.
And go to http://www.grc.com to check your ports if you haven't already done so. You should be showing stealth on all ports.
And use Firefox or Opera instead of Internet Explorer as well. They are faster and more responsive with a dialup anyway so you will kill two birds with one stone.
Do those things and use common sense with email and worms and trojans will be a thing of the past. Until the next round of exploits.
I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
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igotout
And use a router for best firewall protection. It is built in. Why install Zone Alarm software all throughout the system or enable XP's firewall or the invasive Norton Internet security when the hardware itself will do the job? GRC will surely report stealth on all ports immediately after you hook up your router. And they couldn' be easier to set up.
Sudo, why not use broadband? It is a bargain these days.
If you are on the Internet you should have a firewall. XP is more secure than 98 IMHO. But a common mistake that is made among XP users is they go on the Internet with full administrative rights. Not a good idea. Better to make yourself a user or Power user. Use the Administrator account only when you need to.
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Goey
Igotout,
The blaster virus is a "worm" and does not infect the boot sector of the hard drive. It always comes in though unprotected TCP ports. Where is it copied to the System32 folder. It is then executed from a registry entry.
So, The only way to get infected is for the code to enter your system via a network and then be told to execute.
But yes there are viruse that infect the boot sector -- but blaster is not one of those.
Goey
"Most of my fondest memories in TWI never really happened"
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Bluzeman
Sudo:
Connect to the internet, go to a dos prompt, and run netstat -an and email me the results. You can run it like netstat -an > netstat.txt and it will make a text file of the results that you can send.
Also, if you have some free time when your in the office this week, get in touch with me and I'll do a port scan on your ip and see what's up.
Rick
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