As soon as I boot up windows I get the error message: 16 bit MS-DOS Subsystem C:\DOCUME~\SIMONH~\dYfYf.exe The NTVDM CPU has encountered as illegal instruction. CS:06f6 IP:01fb OP:63 6f 6c 6f 72 Choose 'Close' to terminate the application. So I close, and exactly 5 minutes later it appears again (with a slightly different filename), and again and again and it's pissing me off so much. I've now go about 20 exe files in my C:\DOCUME~\SIMONH~\ file because one is created every 5 mins. I've done a search and it seems other people have had similar error messages but I couldn't find a solution to my particular problem. I have no idea what triggered it. Computer was fine on Monday eve, didn't turn it on tues, then wednesday morning bam it's skrewed. I tried a system restore- nothing, I tried search and destroy, virus scan, nothing. Appreciate the help, thanks. Simon Hearn

How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP To help troubleshoot error messages or other issues when you cannot determine the cause of the issue, disable common startup programs, settings, and drivers to eliminate possible software conflicts when you start Microsoft Windows XP. This procedure is known as "clean booting." To find out what each Startup(or Process) item does or means, and any recommendation as to if you should close the process: Task List Programs

Hello:What did you do before this happened? What were your last deeds on the machine before the pop-up appeared? I think your problem lies with either updatemgr.exe or NTVDM.EXE, or both. First, establish who owns updatemgr.exe, Microsoft or some third-party owner. Second, rename updatemgr.exe and see whether the message goes away. To establish ownership (and the function of updatemgr.exe), do a search for the file. Click START/ select FIND/ In the FIND dialog box, type: updatemgr.exe. See the directory in which the file has lodged. In Windows Explorer, get to the file, right-click on it, select PROPERTIES. Who owns it? Is there an indication of its function. Next, rename the file. Right-click it, select RENAME and rename it to, say, updatemgr.old. RESTART your computer. Do you still get the error message. Not likely. To clean things up a bit, perhaps it is a good idea for you to replace the current NTVDM.exe with a new copy. Find out where NTVDM.exe is. Then, click START/ select RUN/Type in the RUN dialog box SFC to run the System File Checker. Insert your OS CD, follow the prompts, extract a copy of NTVDM.exe and send it to its place of residence. Of course, you should also replace a copy of updatemgr.exe. That should eliminate your problem for good Bon Courage and let us Know ....

Thanks both of you. Chuck: The errors stopped when I booted with none of the Microsoft Services enabled. But I can't work out which is causing the problem. Poweraid: I did a search for updatemgr.exe and found nothing. I did find MMupdatemgr.exe - part of MusicMatch Jukebox. I also tried to find NTVDM.exe file on my win xp cd, but again found nothing. I ran SFC and did a scannow but problem still persists. Any further suggestions? Thanks

ok, so I found the culprit: When I disable the 'DHCP service' in msconfig and re-boot, the errors stop. Any ideas why? Does this help? Thanks