Watson crash ??

[Paulleavett]

Xp is screwing up jpgs, gifs or Bitmaps sent as
attachment to my e-mails, they come out Scambled in
blocks, totaly unreadable.Whatever browser or host I use,
Ive tried Yahoo, hotmail, and tried netscape instead of
explorer. Still the same. I suspect it stems from a
conflict with an old program ulead Photo plus 4 (PP4)
(and PP4 explorer) which worked fine with my old win 2000
but conflicted with windows XP picture & fax viewer. I
have since uninstalled the Pp4 and everything works fine
here now.. UNTIL I send a pic in an e-mail, or even a
word doc with a pic in it. it butchers them. I ran
diagnostics and it told me that PP4 had caused a "Watson
crash" in Sept 03, which is when all my probelms with my
e-mails started.. I'm pretty sure Pp4 did the damage, and
I've got rid of that but how do I fix XP?
Paul L.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

If this is a relatively recent issue, you might try using System Restore to
take you back to a time when this worked properly. Start\All
Programs\Accessories\System Tools\System Restore. If that doesn't resolve
it, try the information below.


The following assumes you have an actual XP CD as opposed to a restore CD or
restore partition supplied by your PC manufacturer.

Go to Start, type sfc /scannow in the run box and press enter. Note, there
is a space between sfc and the forward slash. You will be asked for your XP
CD. Be aware, upon inserting the CD the XP setup screen may appear, this is
not a part of sfc /scannow, rather it is being invoked by autorun. Simply
minimize the screen and allow sfc to continue.

If the above fails to resolve the issue, try a repair install as follows:



Be sure you are well backed up in case there is a problem from which you are
unable to recover. NOTE, while a repair install should leave your data
files intact, if something goes wrong during the repair install, you may be
forced to start over and do a clean install of XP. If you don't have your
data backed up, you would lose your data should that eventuality occur.



Boot from the CD. If your system is set to be able to boot from the CD, it
should detect the disk and give a brief message, during the boot up, if you
wish to boot from the CD press any key.



Once you have pressed a key, setup should begin. You will see a reference
asking if you need to load special drivers and another notice that if you
wish to begin the ASR (Automatic Recovery Console) depress F2. Just let
setup run past all of that. It will continue to load files and drivers.



Then it will bring you to a screen. Eventually, you will come to a screen
with the option to (1) setup Windows or (2) Repair Windows Installation
using the Recovery console.



The first option, to setup Windows is the one you want and requires you to
press enter. When asked, press F8 to accept the end user agreement. Setup
will then search for previous versions of Windows. Upon finding your
version, it will ask if you wish to Repair your current installation or
install fresh. Press R, that will run a repair installation. From there
on, follow the screens.

 

[Guest]

Michael, sfc /scannow does not work on xp home, and it takes 5 minutes to get out of it once it trys to start. Had to go to CTRL-ALT-DEL to get rid of it, then cancelling several windows that kept popping up.

FYI

BEN

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

sfc /scannow works with Home Edition. If you have an non-standard OEM CD or
a recovery CD, you may have to point it to the I386 folder on the hard drive
as the utility by default will search the CD and is looking for the standard
retail CD. The following Knowledge Base Articles confirm it's use with Home
Edition. If you have a standard retail CD, I can only guess that there is
something on your system preventing it from running properly.

On some Tablet PCs, scannow has to be run from the command prompt as above
to start/run.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310747

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=222193

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=813444

 

[Harry Ohrn]

Yes it works. However SFC /SCANNOW will look to the drive letter assigned
to the CD-Rom when XP was initially installed. If the drive letter has
remained the same then all is well. But if you have changed drive letters by
adding another HD, repartitioning or manually changing your drive letter
then SFC will keep prompting you for the XP CD. To get out of this might
take a reboot. If you repeatedly keep pressing retry, retry , retry SFC
/SCANNOW will eventually finish but it could take 20 minutes and hundreds of
clicks on the retry button. But if you change the "Installation path" to the
drive letter that is currently assigned to the CD-Rom device then SFC
/SCANNOW will happily search the CD as intended. Tweakui for XP has the
option to change the install path or you can do a simple reg hack as
follows. Go to Start->Run and type REGEDIT then wind your way down to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup

change SourcePath to the drive letter for your CD-Rom

You may also need to update the

ServicePackSourcePath

If you installed XP with SP1 integrated.