Since upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 3 I have found that Google Earth crashes. The program worked fine in the past so I cannot understand why it no longer works. I have reinstalled Google Earth several times but this has not resolved the problem. The computer meets the minimum requirements for Google Earth.

It will be difficult to diagnose the root cause of this problem without having an error message (or like) which provides information about the cause of the crash or module within which the crash occurred. However, there are some common reasons why this problem may occur that we will cover, as it is likely that one of these will be causing the problem on your computer. First, when upgrading to Windows XP SP3 your graphics card drivers may have been updated if there was an updated version of the drivers available within the Service Pack or through Windows Update. The updated version of the graphics card drivers may not fully support Google Earth or the required graphics rendering which is used by Google Earth (DirectX or OpenGL). Therefore, I suggest that you download the latest drivers for your graphics card as it is likely an updated version would have been released since the installation of Service Pack 3, and hopefully this updated version of the driver resolves the conflict with Google Earth. When downloading the latest driver I suggest that you visit the website for the manufacturer of the graphics card and download their driver, as that is likely to be a more recent and complete version than a version available on Windows Update (simply because you are getting the driver directly from the graphics card manufacturer, rather than a third-party). Once the graphics card driver has been reinstalled, try running Google Earth and check whether the problem continues.

Should the problem continue we next need to check whether there is still a graphics problem with Google Earth. In the Google Earth programs group on your start menu there should be several options for starting Google Earth, specifically DirectX and OpenGL. There are two different ways of rendering graphics. They mostly perform the same functions, with some differences in feature sets and efficiencies, together with the fact that DirectX is a Microsoft-based technology and OpenGL is an open standard. For the purpose of Google Earth both should provide comparable performance and features, so it is just a matter of checking whether one of these modes works with your video card. We will first try DirectX, so click the shortcut to “Start Google Earth in DirectX mode”. Check whether this works and Google Earth starts and functions correctly. If so, then you should use this shortcut to start Google Earth as it will force the program to run in DirectX mode (as it previously appeared to be running in OpenGL mode and was crashing). However, if this does not work and the problem continues then we will next try running Google Earth in OpenGL mode, so click the shortcut to “Start Google Earth in OpenGL mode”. Likewise, if this works then from now onwards use this shortcut to start Google Earth so that it runs in OpenGL mode which seems to be the compatible mode for your video card.

However, there may be a situation where neither DirectX or OpenGL mode work. This indicates that something else is wrong, as your graphics cards definitely do support one (or both) of these modes since Google Earth previously worked on your computer prior to the upgrade of Windows XP Service Pack 3. I would suggest that you next check whether you are running the latest version of Google Earth and, if not, then download the latest version from earth.google.com in case there was an issue in a previous version with Service Pack 3 and your graphics card which has been resolved in this latest version.

Should the problem continue, we should check whether there are any programs or processes running in the background that could be conflicting with Google Earth. While this is a long-shot, since there should have not been any modifications to the background processes when upgrading to Service Pack 3, there is a possibility that an existing process is now conflicting with Service Pack 3 resulting in problems for Google Earth. To test this theory, go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “msconfig” (without the quotes) and click OK. In the System Configuration Utility window that appears, click the “Startup” tab. This lists all the programs and processes which load on Windows startup. All the entries which are ticked indicate that the item will load on startup, whereas entries which are unticked indicate that the item will not load on startup (it has been disabled). Write down all the processes which are enabled to load on startup (alternatively, it may actually be easier to write down the processes which are disabled depending on the number of items which are enabled vs. disabled). Once this has been done, click the “Disable All” button. This will disable all processes from loading on startup. Click OK to save the changes and then restart the computer.

Once the computer restarts you should notice that none of the background programs or processes load. You will also receive a message warning that the computer is running in Selective Startup mode. This simply means that you have selectively enabled / disabled items from loading on startup, which is true since we have disabled startup items. You can tick the box to not display that message again and then close the window. Try opening Google Earth and check whether the problem continues and if not then one of those background programs or processes was causing the problem. To determine which exact program or process was causing the problem, go back into the System Configuration Utility > Startup tab. Using the list which you compiled previously, re-enable one of the processes which was previously disabled then click OK and restart the computer. Once the computer has restarted, start Google Earth and check whether the problem has returned. When the problem does return you know the most recently enabled program or process is the one causing the problem. In this situation you should be able to re-enable all the other programs and processes which were disabled, just leaving that one program or process disabled.

Having determined that a particular program or process is causing the problem then we need to do some more research on that particular item, to determine whether there is a fix for the problem. In most cases it will be difficult to determine the purpose of the program or process simply from the filename which is listed on the Startup tab of the System Configuration Utility. As such, you will likely need to use Google to search for the process name. This should yield information on the purpose of the process together with the program to which the process is associated. After completing this research if you deem that the process is not critical (or even useful) for your purposes then you could just leave that process disabled. However, if the process does provide functionality which you need to use, then you may need to correct the issue. In this case, I suggest that you visit the website for the developer of the process (or the software associated with the process) in case the incompatibility is a known issue with Windows XP Service Pack 3 and there is an update or steps that you may follow to resolve the problem.

However, you may find yourself in a situation where the Google Earth problem persists even after disabling all programs and processes from loading on startup. In this case, it does not seem that a background process is causing the problem. Therefore, before doing anything else you should re-enable all the processes which were previously disabled and then restart the computer so they all reload. At this point we have reached the limit of the procedures that can be undertaken to resolve this problem without additional information. If you continue to have difficulties which you cannot resolve then please contact me again with additional information about the problem, in particular the exact error message that appears when Google Earth crashes on startup. If you could also provide details on the model of graphics card installed in the computer that could prove to be quite useful.