Apart from Cleanup and Defragmenter what else can I do?

U

URBAN

Hello Expert in Windows XP,
Apart from Cleanup and Defragmenter what else can I do?
Reason is that I am cleaning up every 10 minutes in order that the PC
does not get frozen. When frozen, I get out of Mains (electricity) by
switching ALL off and then I return. Is that dangerous/harmful? Is
that all I can do? May RESTORING to earlier date help?
Hoping that you may de of assistance,
Thanks and regards,
Urban
**************************************
 
D

Don Phillipson

Reason is that I am cleaning up every 10 minutes in order that the PC
does not get frozen. When frozen, I get out of Mains (electricity) by
switching ALL off and then I return. Is that dangerous/harmful? Is
that all I can do? May RESTORING to earlier date help?

1. Yes, indeed, SYSTEM RESTORE may put you right, so long
as you have saved a set of bootup files that antedate your
system hang problem.

2. If this fails (if system hangs again) it would be faster for you
to reinstal WinXP from scratch. This takes less than an hour
(but updating SP2 and SP3 would take another hour each.)
Before reinstalling you should ensure all the hardware is in
good condition. Hard drives are now so cheap that perhaps you
should buy a new one and instal onto that, then copy over
the data files you need. Reinstalling your preferred apps
will take more time, but usually saves time and grief in
the long run.
 
T

Tim Meddick

If you start the Disk Cleanup Manager, select a drive, say [C:], and then
let it run and search out files - at the end of it's search - as long as
you don't change the default boxes that are "pre-ticked" - you are SAFE to
then press the [ok] button to delete them.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :)
 
J

Jose

Hello Expert in Windows XP,
Apart from Cleanup and Defragmenter what else can I do?
Reason is that I am cleaning up every 10 minutes in order that  the PC
does not get frozen. When frozen, I get out of Mains (electricity) by
switching ALL off and then I return. Is that dangerous/harmful?  Is
that all I can do? May RESTORING  to earlier date help?
Hoping that you may de of assistance,
Thanks and regards,
Urban
**************************************
If you keep using the power button, you will likely corrupt your file
system (which you can fix) and after that happens, you will have a new
topic that starts like this:

My system won't boot. When it tries to boot I see a message like
this:
Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or
corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

Without more information, you could be guessing and trying things for
a long time...and you might get lucky. Or you can figure out what is
going on with certainty and fix it.

Lets get some more basic information so you are not just trying
things.

Please provide additional information about your system.

What is your system make and model?

What is your XP Version and Service Pack?

Was the issue preceded by a power interruption, aborted restart, or
improper shutdown? (this includes plug pulling, power buttons,
removing the battery, etc.)

Does the afflicted system have a working CD/DVD drive?

Do you have a genuine bootable XP installation CD (this is not the
same as any Recovery CDs that came with your system)?

Click Start, Run and in the box enter:

msinfo32

Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select
All, Copy and then paste the information back here.

For video driver information, expand the Components, click Display,
click Edit, Select All, Copy and then paste the information.

There will be some personal information (like System Name and User
Name), and whatever appears to be private information to you, just
delete it from the pasted information.

This will minimize back and forth Q&A and eliminate guesswork.

XP has a feature built in just to help figure out what is going on
with system that freeze, lock up or stop responding. Since the
feature is there just for this purpose, you should use it.

If your system stops responding, hangs or freezes and you can't figure
out why, you can force a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) which will create
a crash dump file that you can analyze and see what is running at the
point of the freeze and get some ideas that do not involve guesswork.

While it may seem odd to think about purposely causing a Blue Screen
Of Death (BSOD), Microsoft includes such a provision in Windows XP.
The feature is built in to XP specifically to diagnose the problem
when a system hangs, freezes or stops responding.

This will eliminate trying things or guessing about what might be
happening maybe. You will know what is happening.

When the system hangs, there will often not be any indication or clues
in the Event Viewer logs, but feel free to look and see if there are
any significant event around the time of the failure.

Here's how to force your system to create a BSOD:

First make sure your system is not set to automatically restart on a
system failure and is set up to create a crash dump file when a Blue
Screen of Death (BSOD) occurs.

Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery,
Settings.

In the System failure section:

Put a check mark in the "Write an event to the system log" box
Put a check mark in the "Send an administrative alert" box
Uncheck the "Automatically restart" box

In the Write debugging information section, choose:

Small memory dump (64 KB)

Set the Small dump directory to:

%SystemRoot%\Minidump

Click OK twice to save the settings.

Now enable the XP feature to generate a crash dump on demand.

Before making registry changes, backup your registry with this popular
free and easy to use tool:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/erunt.html

For PS/2 keyboards, launch the Registry Editor (Start, Run,
regedit.exe) and navigate to:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters

For USB keyboards, launch the registry editor (Start, Run,
regedit.exe) and navigate to:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid\Parameters

Click Edit, select New DWORD Value and name the new value:

CrashOnCtrlScroll

Double-click the CrashOnCtrlScroll DWORD Value, type 1 in the Value
Data text box to enable the feature, and click OK.

Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows XP for the changes to
take effect.

When you want to cause a BSOD (when your system has stopped
responding), press and hold down the [Ctrl] key on the right side of
your keyboard, and then tap the [ScrollLock] key twice. Now you should
see the BSOD and you will have a crash dump file to analyze.

You may not see the information about your problem on the BSOD screen,
but you will find the answer in the crash dump file. You may need
help interpreting your crash dump file if you have never seen one
before. If you need help, you can share the dump files in many ways
and someone can look at them for you and then you will have some ideas
that do not involve guessing about what is going on.

You can read about the feature here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff545499.aspx

There is no harm in leaving the feature enabled (mine is always on),
but if you are compelled to remove it, just undo the change you made
in the registry.

Launch the Registry Editor (Start, Run, regedit.exe) and navigate to:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters

or

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid\Parameters

Select the CrashOnCtrlScroll value, click the Edit menu, and select
the Delete command.

Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows XP.

Go ahead and test the new manual crash dump on demand feature to be
sure it works as expected, then wait for the system to hang again.

When you have some crash dump files accumulated, you can learn how to
figure out what is going on with the system when it is hung or not
responding and then you can decide what needs to be done to fix it.

If you need help looking at the dump files, we can help you with that
too.
 

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