XP crashes - will not boot

If you add the updates from Windows Update, especially the critical updates
and do so regularly, then you are updating the system to SP1. If you are
set to receive automatic updates, then the system has been SP1 right along,
which was, by the way released last September. SP1 is something of a
cumulative patch that includes all the updates up to the time SP1 was
released.

You might be able to determine the source of the crashes as follows:
First, be sure your antivirus software has the latest definitions and run a
virus scan.

If your system is clear of viruses, open Control Panel, open System, go to
the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery, remove the
check from "Automatically Restart" under System Failure. This will cause
the system to blue screen instead of restarting on errors and the
information on the blue screen may give a clue as to the source of the
issue.

Open Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, open Event Viewer, look for
errors corresponding to the crash, double click the error, the information
contained within may give a clue as to the
source of the problem.

Assuming you have an XP CD and not a recovery CD, place the XP CD in the
drive, when the setup screen appears, select "Check System Compatibility,"
the report it generates may point to problem hardware or software on your
system. If you do not have an XP CD, you can download this application
known as the Upgrade Advisor from the following site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...ng/advisor.asp
Note: If you have access to a broadband connection it might be best to
download using that as this is a rather large download.

Check for the latest drivers for your hardware, especially your graphics
card and soundcard and all peripherals connected to your system. No not use
Windows Update for this, go to the device manufacturer's web sites and if
you install updated drivers, ignore the message about drivers being unsigned
by Microsoft.


--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"George McMurtry" <qsales@quesant.com> wrote in message
news:04d501c37e12$ed8fa0f0$a101280a@phx.gbl...

> Sometime within the last 6 to 8 weeks, a change was made
> by MS to XP Professional. We buy Gateway computers with
> XP Pro as the operating system. We believe MS has started
> putting some of the features of Service Pack 1 into the
> standard XP release. Our software (that has a unique DSP
> card driver, TI chip set, written in assembler) will no
> longer load and causes XP Pro to immediately crash. This
> was working fine on XP Pro just 6 weeks ago. We know that
> our driver will not load if Service Pack 1 is installed
> and so we are trying to find out what MS has added to XP
> to cause this crashing to happen and can it be removed.
> We can still operate on Windows 2000 and NT so this is not
> a hardware problem with Gateway, it is definitely some
> change to the XP Pro operating system. Has anyone else
> experienced this or know of this problem and a potential
> solution?