Friday the 14th...

Yeah yeah.. I don't want to be another person complaining about the Blue Screen of Death. I got one similar to the one above this evening. It wasn't the blue screen that made me mad, but it was Microsoft's suggested fix.

Microsoft suggested that I run the XP setup program and place it in Repair mode. I've read this suggestion from them before and ignored it. I should have ignored it this time too, but I was fed up with this particular crash I keep getting.

So I stuck my XP disc in the drive and rebooted the computer. Everything seemed to go well throughout the setup process until just before it finished. The program spat out about five different errors real fast and then finished up.

When XP finally started I was using Home Edition pre-SP1. I knew that meant trouble because half the programs I use require SP2. Those programs weren't shy about letting me know that they were unhappy with the situation.

The first thing I did was run to Windows Update. It didn't work. Internet Explorer just froze up and wouldn't do anything. So I had to end the process through the task manager. I went into IE's ActiveX folder and deleted the Windows and Microsoft Update class files. That did the trick, but I had to wait about five minutes for Windows Update to fully load the first time around.

I thought I was home free after that. I'd thought wrong. The required BITS and HTML update would download, but not install. So I had to find the manual install package on Microsoft's downloads website. Just my luck it required me to validate Windows. I installed Microsoft's Genuine Advantage ActiveX control and to my surprise they made me restart the computer after it installed.

By this point I was pretty annoyed and things weren't looking too good. I went back to the downloads site and found the file I needed again. This time it let me validate Windows and download the installer program.

It worked. I restarted the computer and when Windows booted up it started automatically downloading about ten different security updates. They all downloaded and installed without giving me any trouble.

When they were done I had to restart again. My next trip to Windows Update finally gave me access to Service Pack 2. I guess I'm about back where I was before.

There are a lot of errors in my error log right now, but hopefully they'll go away once SP2 is finished installing. I still don't know if all this trouble has fixed the crashing problem that I was having. I suppose I'll find out soon enough. After all of this trouble it had better work like the day I bought it.

I'll never do this again. There must have been an easier way than practically reinstalling the entire operating system. I just wish the error reports from the crash would have been more specific about what caused it.

Well it's time to install SP2...

It didn't work. After installing SP2 I got another BSOD while Windows was loading. This is ridiculous. I suppose I'll just keep working around them like I have been.

I uninstalled Windows OneCare Live which is a program that I really liked. It was just a little too much for my computer. Most of my recent blue screens have happened while that program was working. I had blue screens before too, but hey I've got to blame something.

I'm pretty sure that my only real hope of running a stable OS is to get a new computer. This computer is six years old and it's just not made for today's programs. The parts themselves are starting to break down and stop working as well.

Oh well. I'm back where I began. It looks like I'll be putting ZoneAlarm and AntiVir back on here.

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Get well soon Sean!