Over the years I have been plagued by the "you have performed an illegal operation and the computer will be shut down" messages that pop up on the computer screen. I was told it was a memory problem so increased my memory to 256 meg. Now that we have upgraded(?) to the Microsoft XP Office suite, it pops up much more frequently and now it actually freezes the computer. CTRL/ALT/DELETE does not work. I have to shut the machine off at the power switch (actually pull the plug) to get it working again. This happens four or five times a day Does anyone know how to solve this problem? And, what causes it?
Could be many things but the simple explanation is a conflict between 2 programs or hardware device drivers. Which 2? Who knows. If you can, I would wipe the hard drive clean and start fresh. I was having similar problems and this cleared it up. Sorry to be so vague, but it's impossible to know exactly what programs or hardware conflicts you have without actually seeing your computer.
The first thing I would look at are all the programs that automatically launch at startup, mot of which you probably never use. You, know, all those little icons down in the lower corner. I know how to do this in W98, but not in 2000 or XP, as the proedure has changed. On my laptop, the culprit was the anti-virus software from McAfee. Once I turned that off, the whole computer felt better. It had been crashing every 30-45 minutes. Tough way to go through the day. Now it crashes maybe every other week. Good Luck!
That's interesting. I have the McAfee anti virus software. But, the problem did not get real bad until I installed the new Microsoft XP Office Suite. Now, it crashes all the time. I guess that might mean that the McAfee software is having a problem with the XP. I was planning on getting the new Norton Anti virus software this weekend so I think I will delete McAfee.
Try turning it off first. In W98, you would do it by clicking the Start Menu, then Run, then type in msconfig <enter>. On the startup tab, you are presented with a list of programs that can launch at startup. You then simply select, or deselect the ones you want or don't want. There must be something like that in XP. See if you can figure out that process, and try that before you make major changes to your system.
