Every time I turn on my PC (running Windows ME) a dialogue box appears with the message ‘Program Error: Stack Overflow: Close’. I close the window and proceed. When attempting to use the Windows Help facility to see what can be done, this led me into a very technical document that suggested I ensure my CONFIG.SYS file is properly configured. When I opened the CONFIG.SYS file via MS-DOS all I see is an empty file. The problem is a minor irritant at the moment, but I worry it may be a precursor to something more disruptive.

You will need to edit the CONFIG.SYS to fix this error. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ’sysedit’ (without the quotes) and click OK. Click the CONFIG.SYS window. Enter the following in the file:
STACKS=64,512
FILES=60
BUFFERS=40
Save the CONFIG.SYS file and close the System Configuration Editor. Reboot the computer. If the problem ceases, you should be safe. If your computer, for whatever reason, becomes unbootable you will need to boot in Safe Mode and remove the recently added lines (see above) from your CONFIG.SYS file (and we will try another procedure). To do this, when the ‘Starting Windows Me’¦’ message is displayed just before the Windows splash screen, press F8 and select ‘Safe Mode Only’ from the start menu. Follow the previously given procedure, but delete those three lines from your CONFIG.SYS file. Similarly, if the problem persists I also suggest that you remove those files from your CONFIG.SYS file to avoid any conflicts down the line. Having restored the system to its original configuration, we can now look at other causes of the problem. It might be that programs running in the background are causing conflicts. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘msconfig’ (without the quotes) and click OK. In the window that appears, click the ‘Startup’ tab. Disable any non-essential applications by removing the tick next to their name. Click OK. Reboot your computer and see if the problem persists. If not, re-enable the applications one at a time until the problem program is found. If the problem does persist, re-enable all applications and please contact me again for further suggestions.