Windows ... the greatest BUG ever??

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Windows ... the greatest BUG ever??

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I think the usual response to this sort of stuff is that you're not smart enought to operate a computer with Windows XP installed. Install Linux instead.

Pfffft ...
n00b.

you have a dodgy copy of windows
it fails
and you reinstall the dodgy copy

am I missing something here :?

what age is the desktop ?
I wont ask about workload, as it is apparent you are heavily into farting around / research with your PC

I would have opted to try a different CD to install off
try putting on W2000 it's cheap now

you have ran chkdsk
and when you were installing it WAS to a fully flattened HDD
with a fresh partition

it's not just the NOS's that like a clean bed

the only other option that is springing to mind, is a good old fashioned PICNIC fault
it has to be something you have omitted
50 times in the lifetime of a box is ridiculous

and to save time why didn't you ghost the image when it was up and limping along

something's not quite right here
it sounds too much like a 'let's bash MS' thread
just remember, if it wasn't for billy boy, we wouldn't have all these wonderful PC's to trash

for me, a failed install gives me a reason to replace the HDD too, I use a volume copy to install too, and I look after the CD's
you are playing with em a LOT
so keep some spares available

50 fails is just WRONG on so many levels
you are holding something back

OK, I agree the thread name sounds as if it is a "Let's Bash MS" thread. However when I wrote down the thread, I was really really frustrated by another failure of Windows. I agree that to some extent I have been researching with my PC too much. About half of the reinstalls were due to my "PLAYING AROUND" with system files and things as such. Some other 25% (percent) were done when there was no one to tell me that what to do when the PC goes slow and I myself was a newbie ... I didn't even know that defragmenting will increase the sped upto some extent.

But since last 1 year or so, I have been something most people call a 'power user' of Windows. I too agree on the fact that there MUST be something really wrong with the installs. As far as BUYING the software is concerned, I had tried for it, but I lived in a small place in India and there are NO dealers for SOFTWARE.... leave alone the question of the Windows.

AS far as 50 times in the life of a machine is concerned, I DO NOT think that it is ridiculous considering that most of them were done by me due to "KNOWN" mistakes. Reducing the number to NORMAL failuer will bring it down to around 8 times or so. And those 8 were COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED failures. It is not the first time this has happened. There have been times when the OS crashed on me when I clicked on "Insert --> Picture" in OO, click opened the 'My Documents' etc.

@rlt : Yes I do run openSUSE as my OS for most other uses and have been understanding the OS slowly and steadily. The only problem I have on that one is the inaccessibility of the Internet due to my modem which is a GPRS enabled Mobile phone connected to the system by USB.... and almost all Linux users know that USB has got a bad life on Linux.

@Nihil : Yes, we are talking about clean installs which include the formatting of the whole hard disk.

1> I have tried more than 1 CDs. They all have same results. I used a CD without SP1, then I used one with SP1 on it and then I slipstreamed SP2 onto it. I even installed HOME edition form my friend (he had original one) and the results were same. On the other hand an installation which ran SLOW under normal conditions live on the same machine for 1 year without any problems. I am unable to undertand why this happened.

2> I am not sure what Windows Defender did. All I know is that it was running in the background. However i think that I did not open any suspicious sites which could make USE of the Defender. Again, I use firefox, not IE.

3> All reinstalls were failures in case of Kerio firewall. Each time I tried it, it said that the UNinstallation was successful but then the Kerio services were visible in the Services section! What about that?

I am not flaming Windows or MS in particular. Windows for sure is a good OS but it crashed upon me on many occasions. My question is not on Windows. My question is on "what went wrong with ME?"

Were the CDs burned copies or originals? Did you try a different CDRom? (possible hardware issue)? Have you done a diagnostic on the hardware and memory check?

XP requires good hardware....and alot of resources.

I have been running it for almost 3 years on several machines and have not had any of the issues you describe other than
Issues with

3rd party applications
Mutiple versions of MS Office :roll:
poorly written drivers
Scumware
falling hardware
people and\or apps mucking with the registry and\or system files

What kinda hardware you got this installed on.

You sound like me when I was first learning NT 4.0

I swear I had to reinstall almost every week....

Mostly due to drunken registry editing :(

MLF

Yes Morgana~ it does sound as if it could be a resource issue as it sounds like it ran slow from day 1?

If you then factor in three interactive antimalware/firewall apps that may not be playing nice together..................?

Firefox is also quite a resource hog on its own ;)

EDIT:

If there is a setting in the BIOS for "AGP aperture size" try values of 32Mb and 64Mb, as this reduces what is available for the system/applications, so a smaller value might give better performance.

OK, Here is what happened:

I bought my machine from compaq/HP (it is branded and there is nothing I can do with BIOS) All I have done is to add another hard disk, a DVD writer and some memory. The box did not come with an OS.

@MsMittens: Yes, I have changed CD roms from pirated to an orginal and the CD rom as well (actually used the another DVD writer insted of the previously installed DVD combo drive). The problem persisted.

@morgan : I seem to be on your way or the other way round!

@Nihil: I have tried many options. But every 3 months o so, I face a data loss. Even though I do dnot have any important or sensitive data on my desktop. But, I really hate to lose my emails, and documents created overnight. Yes, after going onall through the thread, I too think it is a resource issue. But what could be that 'resource'?

Well if it is crashing that often you have a hardware problem...or a bad driver.

The additional hardware is obviously using more power...so it could be that.

OEMs offer Bios and driver updates so you may want to check Compaqs site for updated drivers, chipset updates and BIOS updates.

The event viewer may give you some ideas on the errors occuring when it crashes.

Also you can turn off automatically restart when crashing so you can get the exact bugcheck error

something like IRQ_NOT_EQUAL and alot of hex...it will usually list dlls and apps running at the time of the crash.....and the file that cause dthe exception.

My gut says unstable hardware\driver

MLF

Well, somewhere you are right! Actuallu your "IRQ_NOT_EQUAL" thing reminded me that the OS started getting towards an unstanble state after some sort of crash. On the BSOD, I have seen that "IRQ_NOT_EQUAL" thingy. What is that?

I think and as far as I remembr, I got a link of some intel developer documentation (in PDF format) from this site only (I think NIhil was the poseter). I have seen that term in the document. But I could not understand it as it is towards the end of the doc which I have not read till now. SO is that related to the processor?

And if that is really related to the processor, do I take it as a driver issue?

IRQ is usually a driver issue...

are you sure you have enough power for all your devices...?????

Make sure your devices have updated drivers and XP SP2 is installed...oh and dont forget the 80 or so post SP2 patches

:)

MLF