Stops Working

[MichaelBN]

By now it should be obvious that, under the Vista operating system, I have
Home Premium, there is a severe overall, general "has stopped working"
problem.

Thus far I've experienced:
"Internet Explorer has stopped working"
"Windows Explorer has stopped working"
"Word has stopped working"
"Sherlock Holmes Nemesis (Adventure Company) has stopped working"
"Outlook has stopped working"
"Acid 4.0 (Sony) has stopped working"
"Acid 6.0 (Sony) has stopped working"
"Sound Forge (Sony) has stopped working"

Is it not obvious by now that Vista has a problem, maybe a compatability
problem, with everything from Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word to third
party programs which cause programs, as I mentioned, even programs made by
Microsoft, to "stop working"?

Is there no an overall "stopped working" patch or something that Microsoft
has released by now?

Could it possibly be that Vista's OK, but every program that runs within its
system has suddenly gone bad, even those produced by Microsoft?

In looking through the forum, I see other users asking about certain
individual programs and applications that have "stopped working".

When I asked specifically about Word, I was told that there are probably
Word "temp" files on my computer that I needed to find and delete. However,
I purchased a brand new Gateway laptop and within a few days, Word stopped
working.

Are there Sony Acid temp files or Sherlock Holmes game temp files that my
wife or I have to find and delete?

I submit that there's a, and here's my non technical side coming out,
"glitch", for lack of a better non techie term, in Vista the operating system
that, if discovered and fixed via an update or a patch would be a general fix
for the very general "stopped working" problem.

When one is working under a deadline or one's work is time sensitive, one
can not be fighting programs which stop and start working over and over
again. And coming here and asking about every other program which "stops
working" is extremely time consuming and can be even expensive.

Please tell me that you've solved this problem, in general.

Thanks in advance.

Michael Bonanno
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Charlie Tame]

By now it should be obvious that, under the Vista operating system, I have
Home Premium, there is a severe overall, general "has stopped working"
problem.

Thus far I've experienced:
"Internet Explorer has stopped working"
"Windows Explorer has stopped working"
"Word has stopped working"
"Sherlock Holmes Nemesis (Adventure Company) has stopped working"
"Outlook has stopped working"
"Acid 4.0 (Sony) has stopped working"
"Acid 6.0 (Sony) has stopped working"
"Sound Forge (Sony) has stopped working"

Is it not obvious by now that Vista has a problem, maybe a compatability
problem, with everything from Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word to third
party programs which cause programs, as I mentioned, even programs made by
Microsoft, to "stop working"?

Is there no an overall "stopped working" patch or something that Microsoft
has released by now?

Could it possibly be that Vista's OK, but every program that runs within its
system has suddenly gone bad, even those produced by Microsoft?

In looking through the forum, I see other users asking about certain
individual programs and applications that have "stopped working".

When I asked specifically about Word, I was told that there are probably
Word "temp" files on my computer that I needed to find and delete. However,
I purchased a brand new Gateway laptop and within a few days, Word stopped
working.

Are there Sony Acid temp files or Sherlock Holmes game temp files that my
wife or I have to find and delete?

I submit that there's a, and here's my non technical side coming out,
"glitch", for lack of a better non techie term, in Vista the operating system
that, if discovered and fixed via an update or a patch would be a general fix
for the very general "stopped working" problem.

When one is working under a deadline or one's work is time sensitive, one
can not be fighting programs which stop and start working over and over
again. And coming here and asking about every other program which "stops
working" is extremely time consuming and can be even expensive.

Please tell me that you've solved this problem, in general.

Thanks in advance.

Michael Bonanno
(e-mail address removed)

Yesterday I decided to reinstall Vista on a machine it has been on
before due to a hard drive failure, so in goes a 500GB Seagate and off
we go. About an hour into this, and having ready the "Time is Precious"
thing a couple of times I go to the NVidia website to get MB drivers.

Hit download - "Internet Explorer has stopped working".

Reboot and repeat 3 times

Give up, try Video card drivers - no problem.

Back to MB drivers - works no problem.

Do all other updates - no problem.

Total time well over 3 hours, but go figure? What went wrong the first 3
times. How did a video card driver fix it, at least well enough to get
by. Why, when I asked for detail did it tell me The failed Program,
Internet Explorer, was written by the Microsoft Corporation etc... More
to the point this was a completely new install on a machine (but not the
drive) that Vista had worked on before and had installed without
(apparently) having this problem. At that tie NOTHING has been added,
this was Vista right out of the box as it were.

RAM has had a 3 day test, Ubuntu ran well on it, so I do not have the
slightest reason to suspect hardware.

 

[Nonny]

By now it should be obvious that, under the Vista operating system, I have
Home Premium, there is a severe overall, general "has stopped working"
problem.

Thus far I've experienced:
"Internet Explorer has stopped working"
"Windows Explorer has stopped working"
"Word has stopped working"
"Sherlock Holmes Nemesis (Adventure Company) has stopped working"
"Outlook has stopped working"
"Acid 4.0 (Sony) has stopped working"
"Acid 6.0 (Sony) has stopped working"
"Sound Forge (Sony) has stopped working"

Is it not obvious by now that Vista has a problem, maybe a compatability
problem, with everything from Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word to third
party programs which cause programs, as I mentioned, even programs made by
Microsoft, to "stop working"?

No.

Let me repeat that in case you missed it: NO.

Is there no an overall "stopped working" patch or something that Microsoft
has released by now?

That is a really dumb question. REALLY dumb.

Could it possibly be that Vista's OK, but every program that runs within its
system has suddenly gone bad, even those produced by Microsoft?

Another dumb question.

individual programs and applications that have "stopped working".

When I asked specifically about Word, I was told that there are probably
Word "temp" files on my computer that I needed to find and delete. However,
I purchased a brand new Gateway laptop and within a few days, Word stopped
working.

You obviously are cursed.

Are there Sony Acid temp files or Sherlock Holmes game temp files that my
wife or I have to find and delete?

I submit that there's a, and here's my non technical side coming out,
"glitch", for lack of a better non techie term, in Vista the operating system
that, if discovered and fixed via an update or a patch would be a general fix
for the very general "stopped working" problem.

Don't repeat dumb questions.

When one is working under a deadline or one's work is time sensitive, one
can not be fighting programs which stop and start working over and over
again. And coming here and asking about every other program which "stops
working" is extremely time consuming and can be even expensive.

Please tell me that you've solved this problem, in general.

I must have solved it here because I don't have that problem. Even
with Word... an OLD VERSION of Word.

By the way: your use of "you" seems to indicate that you think this is
an official Microsoft area for reporting problems and getting
solutions.

News flash: it's not. It's a peer-to-peer group where folks who
aren't cursed - as you are - try to help those that are.

 

[MichaelBN]

First of all, let me apologize to anyone who may have been insulted by my
question. The frustration from the "stopped working" problem maybe got the
best of me.

Secondly, however, I don't take the "curse" personally as I've read many of
the other posts and the fact is that there are an inordinate number of posts
that are peers asking peers why programs, many, many, many different
programs, have suddenly "stopped working" when running under Vista.

I could bring up the point that I don't remember getting one single "stopped
working" error message with XP, but I figure that I'd be told that XP didn't
contain the exact "stopped working" error message. My thought about that is
that "stopped working" would have manifested itself in XP as programs
constantly quitting or maybe the OS constantly locking up. It didn't
manifest itself in XP in either of those ways. Programs didn't suddenly quit
and the computer seldomly locked up and, when it did, I could usually track
down why.

As I said, I'm not a computer wiz, but I'm not exactly computer illiterate.
When I have a problem that is time consuming and I can't figure it out
myself, I come here and my peers have been good enough to help.

If one has never encountered a "stopped working" problem with Vista, one
ought to consider one's self fortunate. That fact is manifested by the
plethora of issues that peers post here concerning program after program
after program after application after program which have "stopped working".

Is it my use of the work "glitch" which made you, nonny, my peer, refer to
my question as dumb?

To review:

1. "Stopped working" is endemic to the Vista operating system. The proof of
this lies in the number of questions which ask for help because programs
and/or applications constantly "stop working" when running under Vista.

2. This isn't a venue in which users ask experts about computer problems and
receive answers, although I've been fortunate enough to meet peers in the
past who have had the knowledge to help me and for that I'm grateful.

3. As the words "stopped working", which mean that programs and applications
of all kinds, those created by Microsoft and those not created by Microsoft,
quit far too frequently and inconveniently, it appears to me to be anything
but "dumb" to ask if Microsoft has looked into the OS to find if there's a
common thread for a common problem.

As I don't have "microsoft.public.windows.vista.performance_maintenance"
associated with my name, then I guess that we can assume that all peers are
equal, it's just that some peers are more equal than others.

By the way, "dumb" would not be a word I'd use to describe a question asked
of me by a peer. It's actually insensitive and doesn't lead anyone to a
solution to the "stop working" problem which, it's obvious, is endemic to
Vista's relationship with many, many, many programs and applications.

I thought it was only in politics and I thought it was only Republicans who,
when they don't have a logical answer to a question, resort to character
assasination. Nope, looks like
"microsoft.public.windows.vista.performance_maintenance" peers are prone to
do the same thing.

Are there any peers who know if this general problem is being addressed?

Thanks in advance.

Michael Bonanno

 

[Nonny]

First of all, let me apologize to anyone who may have been insulted by my
question. The frustration from the "stopped working" problem maybe got the
best of me.

Secondly, however, I don't take the "curse" personally as I've read many of
the other posts and the fact is that there are an inordinate number of posts
that are peers asking peers why programs, many, many, many different
programs, have suddenly "stopped working" when running under Vista.

I could bring up the point that I don't remember getting one single "stopped
working" error message with XP, but I figure that I'd be told that XP didn't
contain the exact "stopped working" error message. My thought about that is
that "stopped working" would have manifested itself in XP as programs
constantly quitting or maybe the OS constantly locking up. It didn't
manifest itself in XP in either of those ways. Programs didn't suddenly quit
and the computer seldomly locked up and, when it did, I could usually track
down why.

As I said, I'm not a computer wiz, but I'm not exactly computer illiterate.
When I have a problem that is time consuming and I can't figure it out
myself, I come here and my peers have been good enough to help.

If one has never encountered a "stopped working" problem with Vista, one
ought to consider one's self fortunate. That fact is manifested by the
plethora of issues that peers post here concerning program after program
after program after application after program which have "stopped working".

Is it my use of the work "glitch" which made you, nonny, my peer, refer to
my question as dumb?

Your question was:

Is there no an overall "stopped working" patch or something that Microsoft
has released by now?

How in the F can MS make an "overall" patch that will cure the list of
problems you've had with several completely different programs?

HMM?

Yes, it was DUMB.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

First of all, let me apologize to anyone who may have been insulted by my
question. The frustration from the "stopped working" problem maybe got the
best of me.

Secondly, however, I don't take the "curse" personally as I've read many of
the other posts and the fact is that there are an inordinate number of posts
that are peers asking peers why programs, many, many, many different
programs, have suddenly "stopped working" when running under Vista.

I could bring up the point that I don't remember getting one single "stopped
working" error message with XP, but I figure that I'd be told that XP didn't
contain the exact "stopped working" error message. My thought about that is
that "stopped working" would have manifested itself in XP as programs
constantly quitting or maybe the OS constantly locking up. It didn't
manifest itself in XP in either of those ways. Programs didn't suddenly quit
and the computer seldomly locked up and, when it did, I could usually track
down why.

As I said, I'm not a computer wiz, but I'm not exactly computer illiterate.
When I have a problem that is time consuming and I can't figure it out
myself, I come here and my peers have been good enough to help.

If one has never encountered a "stopped working" problem with Vista, one
ought to consider one's self fortunate. That fact is manifested by the
plethora of issues that peers post here concerning program after program
after program after application after program which have "stopped working".

Is it my use of the work "glitch" which made you, nonny, my peer, refer to
my question as dumb?

To review:

1. "Stopped working" is endemic to the Vista operating system. The proof of
this lies in the number of questions which ask for help because programs
and/or applications constantly "stop working" when running under Vista.

2. This isn't a venue in which users ask experts about computer problems and
receive answers, although I've been fortunate enough to meet peers in the
past who have had the knowledge to help me and for that I'm grateful.

3. As the words "stopped working", which mean that programs and applications
of all kinds, those created by Microsoft and those not created by Microsoft,
quit far too frequently and inconveniently, it appears to me to be anything
but "dumb" to ask if Microsoft has looked into the OS to find if there's a
common thread for a common problem.

As I don't have "microsoft.public.windows.vista.performance_maintenance"
associated with my name, then I guess that we can assume that all peers are
equal, it's just that some peers are more equal than others.

By the way, "dumb" would not be a word I'd use to describe a question asked
of me by a peer. It's actually insensitive and doesn't lead anyone to a
solution to the "stop working" problem which, it's obvious, is endemic to
Vista's relationship with many, many, many programs and applications.

I thought it was only in politics and I thought it was only Republicans who,
when they don't have a logical answer to a question, resort to character
assasination. Nope, looks like
"microsoft.public.windows.vista.performance_maintenance" peers are prone to
do the same thing.

Are there any peers who know if this general problem is being addressed?

The point is that it is *not* a general problem. Yes, I believe you
when you say that you have the problem. And I also believe that there
are others who have the problem. But this not typical of Vista. Many,
many of us have no such problems at all. I have been running Vista
since RTM in November of 2006, and I don't ever remember seeing a
"stopped working" message. I know many other Vista users with similar
experience--no problems at all.

Remember that these newsgroups are where people come for help with
their problems. Few people come here just to post that everything is
OK. So you get to see a lot of threads started by people who have
problems, and very few from those who don't. It gives you a very
misleading idea of what's going on in the world. As someone else once
said, hang around a transmission shop and you'll think that all cars
have transmission problems.

So why do some people (you and a few others) have this problem, and
other people (me and many others) do not? There are many
possibilities: malware infection, unstable hardware, unstable wall
power, a particular hardware configuration which doesn't like Vista,
problematical device drivers, etc. You've told us nothing that might
help one of us to help you with the problem, but instead have ranted
about its being a Vista problem. It's very difficult for anyone to
address your problems when that's all you do.

 

[Nonny]

First of all, let me apologize to anyone who may have been insulted by my
question. The frustration from the "stopped working" problem maybe got the
best of me.

Secondly, however, I don't take the "curse" personally as I've read many of
the other posts and the fact is that there are an inordinate number of posts
that are peers asking peers why programs, many, many, many different
programs, have suddenly "stopped working" when running under Vista.

I could bring up the point that I don't remember getting one single "stopped
working" error message with XP, but I figure that I'd be told that XP didn't
contain the exact "stopped working" error message. My thought about that is
that "stopped working" would have manifested itself in XP as programs
constantly quitting or maybe the OS constantly locking up. It didn't
manifest itself in XP in either of those ways. Programs didn't suddenly quit
and the computer seldomly locked up and, when it did, I could usually track
down why.

As I said, I'm not a computer wiz, but I'm not exactly computer illiterate.
When I have a problem that is time consuming and I can't figure it out
myself, I come here and my peers have been good enough to help.

Some quick research on Google Groups shows that not very many of your
questions get answered.

http://tinyurl.com/57zxco

I wonder if it has anything to do with your verbosity?

Maybe you'd get more help if you were more succinct and stuck to one
problem item at a time??

 

[Nonny]

So why do some people (you and a few others) have this problem, and
other people (me and many others) do not? There are many
possibilities: malware infection, unstable hardware, unstable wall
power, a particular hardware configuration which doesn't like Vista,
problematical device drivers, etc. You've told us nothing that might
help one of us to help you with the problem, but instead have ranted
about its being a Vista problem. It's very difficult for anyone to
address your problems when that's all you do.

Well said.

I'll never win any points for diplomacy... but I've never tried to be
diplomatic. It's no fun! ;->

 

[Charlie Tame]

First of all, let me apologize to anyone who may have been insulted by my
question. The frustration from the "stopped working" problem maybe got the
best of me.

Nope, the frustration is not as rare as is claimed, although some of
course is due to a user's lack of specific knowledge.

Nonny is merely a troll, almost never imparts any real knowledge to the
group, only delivers insults or states the already obvious. It directs
replies to correcting poster's grammatical or spelling errors instead of
the issue posted about.

I can't think of any software I've used that is immune to the "Has
stopped working" phenomenon, which does seem to imply what you said,
that there is some common factor. Except for the repetition 4 times
yesterday, my experience has been that is "Appears" to be random.

As I stated earlier there appears to be no connection with the hardware,
an opinion which is borne out by the fact that I have seen it on every
Vista machine I have used, not always to the same extent but almost
always for no obvious reason when it does happen. My concern is that MS
do need to at least consider the possibilities that you stated, if only
to produce some kind of verifiable denial. After all Nonny says
he/she/it has never had the problem. Great, maybe if you aren't smart
enough to even stress the OS or the machine it doesn't happen, posting
insults to newsgroups is hardly stress for an operating system.

In my case most recently the problems have been worse with Microsoft's
own software than with anything else, largely with IE and Windows
Explorer. This is really annoying when copying large numbers of files,
since when that operation refuses to complete it takes a great deal of
time to figure out what was copied and what was not, and then to try and
isolate what may have been only partially copied. Shouldn't happen
right? Well.

Incidentally this copying process failure would happen with XP also, I
think some issues with explorer are known.

MS do need to address this, calling users of their products "Dumb" and
blaming stuff on hardware all the time is not on. MS do not themselves
do that and I believe that for people who claim to support MS to do that
here is negative.

As for criticism that your initial comment / post was too verbose and
not specific enough here goes then.

-----------------------------------

On a recent machine which has been thoroughly RAM tested and a new
(single) drive installed, why, at around 3 am on Sunday July 6th 2008
did IE fail 4 times with this problem when precious installs using the
same hardware and DVD did not?

 

[NetLink_Blue]

By now it should be obvious that, under the Vista operating system, I have
Home Premium, there is a severe overall, general "has stopped working"
problem.

{snip}

There's a lot of truth in your observation, though these forums magnify the
problem. I believe Microsoft has reached a critical point as a company, and
Vista painfully mirrors the bloated, greedy and out-of-focus company that
spawned it.

I am running a high-horsepower computer, and Vista cruises along very well.
But Vista is a huge hairball of code. Some sections seem to run well, but
there may be parts that are patched and kludged together. How far can
software writers and MS push code complexity before the whole thing
collapses under it's own weight? I guess we will see, sports fans.

Is there no an overall "stopped working" patch or something that Microsoft
has released by now?

No, other than going back to WinXP. Vista is the Titanic. We shall see if
MS can keep it afloat.
{snip}

Michael Bonanno
(e-mail address removed)

NetLink Blue

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Well said.

Thanks.



I'll never win any points for diplomacy... but I've never tried to be
diplomatic. It's no fun! ;->

 

[MichaelBN]

I thought I gave you some hints.

I will be more specific. As this has happened to me on three machines, a
Gateway desktop, my Gateway laptop and my wife’s HP laptop, I would ask you a
favor. Please don’t direct me to the various third party corporations. They
sent me here after they thought they gave me downloads that would fix the
problems. Of course, they’re going to say it’s Microsoft which is at
“faultâ€, and I mean “fault†in the most dignified manner.

By the way, Nonny, what does “F†stand for? Ken, you’re an MVP. Is “F†the
kind of non representation that Microsoft wants non experts to be expressing
toward their peers. Quite a temper.

That, of course, is another problem.

I had Internet Explorer stopped working quite a few times on all three
computers. I actually think that I downloaded a patch that seems to have
fixed it for the most part.

Microsoft Word, Office 2007, began to “stop working†the day after I
purchased this, the Gateway laptop.

As I said, I was told that temp Word files that were hanging around here and
there were the reason it was quitting. As tracking down temp files is, for
me at least, much more complicated than it was on XP, I not only deleted any
files under Users>my username>AppData>Local>Temp, none of which were Word
temp files, but I did a search for “.tmp†and told the OS to look
“everywhereâ€, not just in indexed areas. I found a few “.tmp†files of which
few were Word.

That was on the Gateway desk top. The day after I purchased this laptop,
Word “stopped workingâ€. How many Word “.tmp†files can there be on a one day
old computer? I did the search and that question was answered for me. None.

I can’t finish a Word document without “Word has stopped workingâ€, followed
up by a choice between “close the program†and “Word is starting upâ€. Then,
of course, there’s the choice of which copy of my document I want to keep.
Finishing a Word document takes quite a while under these conditions.

OK, there’s Word and IE. Are there any peers that can help me with that
particular problem?

Sony Acid 4 is a very old version, so I thought I might have trouble with
it. I record music, live. When I plug my instruments in, I set Acid and,
when I’m ready to play, I click start, the marker moves, the counter counts
and I record. This never happened to me with XP, but, after playing a note
or two, the screen fades and the famous “Acid has stopped working†appears.

I restart the machine, do my part all over again and, badabing badaboom
“Acid has stopped workingâ€. Tough to record a whole song when I can’t record
part of a track.

So I broke down and bought Sony’s latest, Acid Pro 6, did my part, clicked
start and “Acid stopped workingâ€. No songs recorded yet with Vista.

Sony did have a download which they said may help the problem. I
downlooaded it and bada…well, you know.

So far, IE, which is quitting less frequently, Word, which isn’t even
running long enough to complete a document without it quitting on several
occasions, Sony music software, which Sony offered me help with (and didn’t
call me one name) have “stopped working†problems.

There’s a generic “Windows Explorer has stopped working†which is a once a
day or at least evey other day occurrence.

Thus far, I need assistance on Word, Sony Acid 6 and Windows Explorer. How
do I stop them from “stop working�

My wife’s game entitled Sherlock Holmes by a company named Adventure Company
has stopped working. She’s not seen level one or whatever the game has, I
don’t play it but I saw the dreaded fading screen and “Sherlock Holmes has
stopped workingâ€, which is to be understood as he died quite a few years ago.

But, all seriousness aside, can we get some help with Sherlock Holmes by
Adventure Company?

Those are some specifics.

What do all of these problems have in common. We’re trying to run them on
Vista.

How is that meaningful?

Word, IE, Windows Explorer and Sony music mixing software never quit while
running under the XP operating system.

That’s about as specific as I can get. There’s no point in time, like
quitting after 3 minutes or during the recording of track 2 or 3 or when I’m
recording guitar or piano or when Windows Explorer opens this or that program
or this number of programs or that number of programs or when I’m using
Outlook and Word or Exel and Word. There’s no particular trigger that I’ve
noted which ultimately results in “stopped working†messages.

I tried real hard not to be sarcastic, I tried to give you specifics and
now, if you’d be so kind, could we try to fix the “stopped working†problems
with the programs I mentioned in this thread?

Thanks so very much.

Michael Bonanno

 

[Charlie Tame]

I do have one suggestion that may or may not prove worthless, anybody's
guess really.

I have found Vista to be very sensitive to video driver problems. Also,
it seems quite sensitive to motherboard driver problems. Indeed that is
the very reason why I targeted both of them for download before anything
else. So last night I tried the mobo driver first which is when IE
failed 4 times in a row, but then after the video driver update all has
been fine since. Was it something to do with the video driver? Who knows.

You might try the NVidia site to see if they can detect new drivers for
your machines, if NVidia is not used no harm done. If not them then
Gateway's or HP's websites may have updated drivers.

 

[MichaelBN]

Thank you Charlie. That's kind of how I'm looking at it now. Who knows why
a fix works? Coincidence?

I will investigate the video driver. I don't have an NVidia sound card or
video card.

I guess this costs money, but, if I wanted to speak to someone who is an
expert, by phone or otherwise, can someone point me in the right direction?
I just can't keep having programs quitting. I get absolutely nothing done.

Again, thanks Charlie. I appreciate your feedback.

Michael

 

[Charlie Tame]

Well I am sure the first question any paid help will ask is whether all
your drivers are up to date. Sometimes in the past the "Latest" video
drivers were not the best, but at least NVidia seem to have improved
that a great deal. I imagine most suppliers have. Why drivers make a
difference to these mysterious glitches I don't know, perhaps some kind
of critical timing thing or whatever.

I suppose "Stopped Working" is better than a blue screen

Another way to look at this is that maybe in previous versions these
"Errors" got by the OS (Leading to a bigger crash if you waited long
enough?) but Vista is actually better at trapping them, and so now even
MS own software comes under better scrutiny than ever before.

Suffice to say that because thousands claim never to see this your
problem is still a real one, and I see no call for any customer to be
insulted. You are most certainly not alone...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=explorer+stopped+working&btnG=Google+Search

Good luck with it and if you find an answer that solves your problems
please post back and let us know. Just be wary of doing the first thing
you find, some are a bit off the wall.