My second and more important problem is that I am unable to defragment my hard drive. It seems to start then continually restart and only reaches about 3% before starting again. I have deleted some programs from my computer and am trying to speed it up a little, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. (more…)

Recently I used Microsoft Automatic Update to download Service Pack 1 for Windows XP Home Edition. The service pack downloaded successfully, however when installing the following error message occurs: ‘Setup could not verify the integrity of the file Update.inf. Make sure the Cryptographic service is running on this computer’. The machine is a HP 712a Pentium 4 and I have successfully downloaded other updates in the past. Any ideas? (more…)

I am running Windows 98 on a Pentium III. Each time I turn on my computer it comes up with the message ‘DW caused an invalid page fault in module DW.EXE at 017f:0043bflc. This program will shut down’. Not knowing what to do, I click ‘Close’. So far nothing bad seems to have happened as a result of closing this program. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix this problem? (more…)

My computer runs Windows 98 and is rarely connected to the internet. Sometimes when I try to open a file (most often a Word document) the computer will stand idle and the file will not open. I have discovered that if I press CTRL+ALT+DEL and then shut down a program called ‘Msipcsv’ the computer runs normally. Also, when I go to shut my computer down, a message comes up saying that there is a ‘Socket Notification Sink’ and that something may not be responding, may be busy, waiting for response or has stopped running. I then have the option of waiting, ending the task or cancelling. Simply ending the task rectifies the problem, and my computer shuts down normally. This message only comes up if I had not previously ended the ‘Msipcsv’ program. Could you tell me how to fix the problem? I have a feeling that simply reinstalling Windows may fix it. (more…)

Recently I upgraded my computer (P4 1.8 GHz, 256 DDR RAM, and a new motherboard) in the hope of fixing some troublesome bugs. This was done around five weeks ago but I still am experiencing the same problems. The computer was initially brought about two and a half years ago and it ran fine for around three months. The system came with Windows 98 SE which I still use today. After some 3 months, problems with the system crashing or locking up and not running some games became apparent. Later on I installed a CD-ROM drive and separate CD-RW drive which also became unreliable and produced music CDs with ’skips’ (like a scratch) on blank CDs which were free of manufacturing defects. I contacted a private technician for help around 7 months ago, where he diagnosed a ‘corrupt’ system and for a $150 fee the hard drive was wiped and reinstalled with Windows. The technician said that it must have been a problem with either the motherboard (new with upgrade); videocard (GeForce 32mb - original with the computer) or; another item which I cannot recall. The system ran well for around a week and a half but then resumed its previous faults including locking up in games it should have run with ease (such as Age of Empires 2 and Dungeon Siege). The computer was then returned to the retail vendor who reloaded Windows 98 and defragmented the hard drive. As is the usual pattern with the computer, once again it ran well for a week. Now, it locks up in all the games as before, and I cannot even load new games, as they tend to lock up my computer with different messages such as ‘This program has performed an illegal operation and should be shut down……’ or it comes up with ‘Cannot find autorun in d: or e: drive’. Please if you can make any sense of this mess I would appreciate some insight! (more…)