'blah' has encountered a problem and needs to shut down...

[Londoner]

I am constantly getting this message pop up, whether it's windows itself which has encountered a problem or an .exe file or something I am installing, it seems to be omnipresent.

I have run Spyhunter, spybot, and I have Norton antivirus on, I have also tried Sysclean Housecall, but there seems to be no virus. In addition the system seems sluggish and I seem to be regularly restarting due to what seems to be screen freezes.

I don't know if all these problems are related or what, but the definate issue is the regular appearance of these 'encountered a problem' messages, and the failure of whatever proceedure is related to them.

Anyone gopt any ideas/suggestions for me please?

[EzyStvy]

Faulty Ram chips can cause all sorts of error messages.

[Londoner]

how would I find out if the RAM chip/s were faulty? - it is actually only a recent problem, the last couple months, but seems to be getting worse, that's why I assumed a virus but have not found any.

[Panama Red]

Download and make a boot disk from www.memtest86.com to test your memory. If you get errors and you have multiple memory sticks, remove what you need to to test one at a time.

[Londoner]

OK, I have done that and theris nothing wrong with my RAM - can anyone suggest anything else? I cannot even update Windows at the moment because all I get is "Self-Extracting Cabinet has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." I can't install my new software and cannot patch any of my games. all I get are these '...encountered a problem' messages.

Help! It's driving me nuts.

[demandred55]

You could try repairing your windows installation.

Just insert the CD in the drive. I believe it's one of the choices on the first screen that pops up. If it won't run the startup program on the disk, you could try booting from the CD and doing the repair that way. (This is for XP. You didn't mention which OS you are using.)

[Londoner]

Thanks for your reply, Demandred. Yes, I am using XP.

I have just put the XP disk in but I can't do what you suggested because I get the 'encountered a problem' message. How do I boot from the disk please?

[Londoner]

Ok, I restarted using my XP disk as suggested, but I have no idea what I am supposed to do once I get there. I would need a step by step outline to achieve anything using this approach since I am not very computer literate.

I'm not a 'techie' or computer nerd, just a software user - if anyone has any suggestions regarding the issue outlined in this thread please write a reply, I cannot move forward with anything until this has been resolved so I would be really happy to see some ideas or guidance as to what it might be.


Thanks.

[demandred55]

You should come to a screen that shows your hard drive partitions with windows asking which partition to install to. Select the partition that already contains the OS. The next screen should say that a windows installation is already on that partition and what you want to do next. There should be an option to repair the existing installation.

[Londoner]

Thanks for your response, Demandred.

The following appears:
1: C:\ WINDOWS
which windows installation would you like to log onto?

I type: 1

Then it reads:

Type the administrator password.

- unfortunately, although this is my computer, from new, I am not aware of any administrator password.. although XP was installed in the shop (Campus Systems). I try going to my user accounts and creating an administrator account with full access and a password then I return to the BIOS set up above and I type in my newly created administrator password - but it tells me it's the wrong one!

any ideas?

[bailey]

you do not need to type anything in there, just continue on

[demandred55]

Well, I believe it wants the password for the user "administrator", not a user that is in the administrator group. This is the user whose password you need to know. You can get basically unlimited retries in trying to guess at it if you go to the User Accounts screen (from Control Panel), select the user "administrator" and then click change password. It will prompt you for the current password. Try hitting enter (blank password). Another popular password would be "administrator". If you can't guess it, I guess you'd have to contact the company that installed the OS and ask them. They should be using the same password for all the installs they do for their customers so they should be able to tell you.


Then again, I just tried changing the password on my machine and it didn't prompt for the original password, just let me change it. So, probably, if you are logged on as a user that is in the "administrator" group, it will let you change the password for the "administrator" user without knowing the original.

[wintomato]

I know that Londoner has tried repairing/reinstalling xp but it gave him a few errors part way through. It has finally finished repairing I think, but now he has lost his internet connection, ie there is no connection set up, it won't even let him install a simple analogue modem.
This may be pointing towards a RAM problem, not sure, although I do know that the RAM tester took a very long time, and I'm not sure that it even finished.
I am posting this, as naturally poor ole londoner can't even access the net now.
I'm fairly sure he only has one RAM stick of 256 so he can't change them out.
any suggestions? he sounds like a desparate man.

from
a family member!

[wintomato]

Londoner tells me that The Gold memory test recommended by pcmech was run for 2 hours, and the ram came up as clean! oh well.