Will a reinstall help? Or a repair install?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tachyon
  • Start date Start date
T

Tachyon

This PC has been showing too many "software exception" and some "fatal
exception errors" lately, mostly for explorer.exe, but also for
iexplore.exe, firefox.exe, pub.exe and others. Always after exit - never
while running an application though. This is almost always followed by a
runtime error box.

SFC /scannow, CHKDSK /R did not help.

A repair install has been suggested here but somebody else said that a
reinstall would be much better.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Regards and thanks in advance.

T
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Do a thorough spyware scan and clean. Great suggestions for doing so can be
found here if you don't know how to do that http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm

A Repair Install is certainly less labour intensive than a clean install
however running a Repair Install over a system rife with spyware is a
shortcut to disaster most of the time so do a decent clean up before the
Repair Install and remember to apply all the XP patches again after. And
always backup your important data.

There is no guarantee that either a Repair Install or a Clean Install will
correct the problem. Hardware problems such as flaky RAM, power supply,
overheating and even motherboard problems can cause applications to crash.
You might want to poke around here
http://www.google.com/search?source...XA:2006-26,DVXA:en&q=fatal+exception+error+xp
 
Harry Ohrn said:
Do a thorough spyware scan and clean. Great suggestions for doing so can
be found here if you don't know how to do that
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm

A Repair Install is certainly less labour intensive than a clean install
however running a Repair Install over a system rife with spyware is a
shortcut to disaster most of the time so do a decent clean up before the
Repair Install and remember to apply all the XP patches again after. And
always backup your important data.

There is no guarantee that either a Repair Install or a Clean Install will
correct the problem. Hardware problems such as flaky RAM, power supply,
overheating and even motherboard problems can cause applications to crash.
You might want to poke around here
http://www.google.com/search?source...XA:2006-26,DVXA:en&q=fatal+exception+error+xp
Click to expand...


Thanks very much for your very informative and helpful response.

Actually (pardon me for omitting it in my OP), I ran AdAware and SpyBot
scans alongwith AntiVir after the system checks - but they turned up
nothing.

The point about the hardware aspect is very pertinent and I shall check out
the hardware (esp the PS, DDR-RAM and mobo) this weekend. That has also set
me thinking that I do not have this kinda error on my other machines. Most
of them have most identical software but different hardware.

I really appreciate the insightful response.

Regards.

T
 
Tachyon said:
Thanks very much for your very informative and helpful response.

Actually (pardon me for omitting it in my OP), I ran AdAware and SpyBot
scans alongwith AntiVir after the system checks - but they turned up
nothing.

The point about the hardware aspect is very pertinent and I shall check
out
the hardware (esp the PS, DDR-RAM and mobo) this weekend. That has also
set
me thinking that I do not have this kinda error on my other machines. Most
of them have most identical software but different hardware.

I really appreciate the insightful response.

Regards.

T
Click to expand...

You are welcome. Good luck with ferreting out the problem.
 
Well... I always prefer a 'clean slate' meaning a new install.

First of all will this cure the problem... maybe yes and maybe no..!
No doubt you have you have cleaned all the Tempory Internet and
History files and done a defrag of the hard drive.... even this may
not cure the problem.

What you need to look at is what is running in the background taking
valuable RAM space in Task Manager .... if all this has been checked
and that you have scanned for bugs with a anti virus and done a
malware scan then I'd be tempted in starting afresh.

You do have to note that one anti virus may easily miss threats that
others catch... so 'my' first policy would be to check these.

I had a computer that would sometimes load windows, sometimes took
ages and some times never, sometimes clanged like a good ol' steam
roller.... yep, it was my Western Digital 3 year old hard drive...!

You can appreciate dioing a new install is the easiest thing to say,
but if you have problems with say lack of RAM then your gonna' be
back on square one in no time at all ~ it could be that have too many
things running at once.

Davy
 
Well... I always prefer a 'clean slate' meaning a new install.

First of all will this cure the problem... maybe yes and maybe no..!
No doubt you have you have cleaned all the Tempory Internet and
History files and done a defrag of the hard drive.... even this may
not cure the problem.

What you need to look at is what is running in the background taking
valuable RAM space in Task Manager .... if all this has been checked
and that you have scanned for bugs with a anti virus and done a
malware scan then I'd be tempted in starting afresh.

You do have to note that one anti virus may easily miss threats that
others catch... so 'my' first policy would be to check these.

I had a computer that would sometimes load windows, sometimes took
ages and some times never, sometimes clanged like a good ol' steam
roller.... yep, it was my Western Digital 3 year old hard drive...!

You can appreciate dioing a new install is the easiest thing to say,
but if you have problems with say lack of RAM then your gonna' be
back on square one in no time at all ~ it could be that you have too
many things running at once.

Davy
 
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