Slight problem with SP2 Pro Edition.

[imported_o2]

ok after much deliberation, i installed sp2 last night. i bought a bluetooth dongle and have read that sp2 has a built in bt driver. everything seems to be fine except that when i reboot, explorer crashes and i think that problem can be attributed to dr.watson. after i close that program, it runs fine.

i read that ms had recommended that people run a spyware program prior to sp2 installation. i ran ad-aware se and a trendmicro scan as well. in addition, i have spywareblaster and spyware guard running as well. i don't really understand what the problem is.

i tried to disable dr. watson and when i rebooted, this error msg came up.

"EXPLORER.exe - application error

The instruction at "0xo14f39ee" referenced memory at "0x00000000" . The memory could not be "written".

Click on OK to terminate program
Click on CANCEL to debug program."

i was wondering if anyone knows what that is all about. i was thinking it's something to do with window's list of prefetch programs..of course i could be wrong. please enlighten me. thank you in advance.

 

[VirtualLarry]

First off, "Dr. Watson" is MS's infamous internal application-fault tool. If something crashes, and you otherwise don't have a debugger installed, it pops up and records the information in a log file somewhere.

Generally speaking, it doesn't actually cause anything to crash, it pops up the instant something *else* crashes, usually for some other reason. I highly doubt that Dr. Watson is the cause of any crashes.

Second, that error simply means that the program tried to access data using a "null pointer", which is a common programming bug. It can also indication hardware problems. It most likely has nothing to do with Windows' prefetch features either.

I have no experience with BT personally. Generally though, if you were having hardware or driver problems, you would probably see BSODs or automatic spontanous reboots rather than application GPFs.

Go here and download "Prime95" - http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

Install it, and have it run the "torture test". If your system is unstable in terms of RAM/CPU, it will generally be able to tell you. Let it run in the background either for at least 24h, or until it starts giving you errors, or your machine reboots. If it survives that, then the problem is likely to be software related, and you can start to diagnose that instead.

Ten to one, though, you probably have some piece of software on your machine, that installed an Explorer "namespace shell extension" or a "browser helper object", and those tend to cause Explorer crashes and conflicts.

 

[imported_o2]

i didn't have this problem when i was running sp1 with spyware and trojan checks every week.

oh and when i enable dr. watson, upon reboot the error msg is dr.watson postmorten debugger has been terminated due to error.

 

[CrackaLackaZe]

have you checked the event log for details?

 

[imported_o2]

sorry but where would i check that?

 

[CrackaLackaZe]

control panel>administrative tools>event viewer