Hi, I have been having some problems the past couple months with my os crashing.I have not installed any new hardware. Explorer would crash spontaneously when opening a directory from just about anywhere (desktop icon/my computer/any partition).Now that problem does not cause the computer to crash,only explorer crashes and all programs that were running still run and explorer restarts.That problem happens every few hours or so,there is no consistency to when it happens or what directory I open to cause this to happen. now the computer would also freeze and lock up for no reason ,again no consistency to the freeze-ups,i could be doing nothing and it could freeze.I did manage to get a couple blue screens and noticed that and ati.dll was causing the problem. I have run full virus scan in safe mode and also adaware and spybot,reformatted and reinstalled my os,installed 2 previous ati drivers(uninstalled old ones first)ran memtest and the problem still persists only now I never get a blue screen so I can only assume its the graphics driver. When I installed my os I installed the via 4in1 driver version 5.1 without the agp driver,I was told that doing this would create conflicts with my ati agp drivers. Going into event viewer is pointless it has no information on or about the crash,I assume the system never has time to record the problem. This is becoming a serious problem as nothing I seem to do resolves this problem. Should I install the via agp drivers? Should I install an older ati video driver?Im currently using the 3.7 catalyst an have used 4.3 &4.2 with many crashes. I also found my motherboard has a new bios update as of a few days ago although I highly doubt it is my bios. -Via P4pb 400 fl -P4@2.4 gig -768 ddr -ati radeon 7000 -250 watt power supply Please help!

I forgot to mention that whenever I get an error report when explorer crashes I states the the following files will be included in the report: C\DOCUME`1\ME\Locals`1\Temp\WER41.tmp.dir00\Explorer.exe.mdmp C\DOCUME`1\ME\Locals`1\Temp\WER41.tmp.dir00\appcompat.txt I forgot to add that I cleaned out all redundant dlls and temp files . Also,the appcompat.txt file use to crash IE whenever I would use the google search bar but that was months ago.

Chunko: the appcompat.txt appears to be a log file generated by the compatibility mode of windows xp when a program crashes unexpectedly and is used for sending error messages to MS. the first thing to do is disable error reporting: click Start, right-click My Computer, select Properties, Advanced tab, Error Reporting button, Disable the message, or limit it to certain programs. some possible causes or fixes for the error: 1. your default user profile contains an incompatible program. 2. media software, which is part of the kaza package; it's something like delfin media. uninstall this program; go to control panel, then add&remove, find this media and remove it. 3. often involved with MS Word; its plug-ins or error reporting to MS. deleting Word add-ins in the registry worked for one person. 4. give administrator privileges to the user with the error message. 5. may arise from a MS update; MS02-070 was mentioned in one post. 6. another post blamed an AOL update. 7. caused by the expiration timing of a demo program. let us know what worked for you...

Everett, I would first like to thank you for your response as I'm sure not to many people would have the patience or knowledge to help fix this issue. I kept the error reporting service enabled because I am desperate for some info on what what the cause is, I now realize how useless it is and have it disabled. You said my default user profile may contain an incompatible program.How would I figure out what program it is and does the program need to be running for the problem to occur? In response to your tips: I know its not kazza because I dont use it. I dont have MS word. I am the administrator. I dont have MS02-070 installed. I dont use AOL. I dont have any demo programs. I reformatted and reinstalled my OS yesterday.Now I'm using the 4.01 ati catalyst and it seems to run without any conflicts such as the system freezing up or rebooting. Explorer.exe continues to stop/restart!!! I have installed the proper drivers and critical updates.I check event viewer and there are no logs at the time of the explorer shutdown/restart although it logs in "application" "event ID" 1002 "The shell stopped unexpectedly and explorer.exe was restarted.(I notice if I end explorer in the task manager I will get the same error and event ID). The problem seems to occur most often when I'm browsing through folders.Keep in mind when this happens the system does not freeze or shut down,explorer is simply killed then restarted automatically with all the programs still running. I once noticed that explorer used up much of the CPU resource(70-80%)and moments later killed and restarted explorer.exe.Now I'm not sure that could be the cause because most of the time this happens explorer is not drowning my CPU power. Do you think it may be a bad or corrupt file?If so,how would I find out? I have spent more time trying to find the cause but cant find anything conclusive.I found some others having this problem but for them it seems to be worse and they get BSODs and eventually find the fix. So earlier today in my quest to find a cure someone mentioned to untick"use common tasks in folders" in My computer properties/advanced settings/performance groups.I'm fairly certain I did that in my last install and still had the problem. I truly feel this is an OS issue and not a driver issue...Who knows So Anyways thanks again and I hope maybe you can help me figure this out.

Chunko, good to see a response! as to the incompatible program issue, you could try the End Processes button in the Properties tab of the Task Manager to select different programs that may be causing the restarts. leave explorer.exe on the list. another approach would be to build yourself a new user profile. any MS updates just before the problem arose? this MS article addresses that issue: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=830846 the CPU surge may also be significant in other ways as this article says to upgrade to SP1: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=317751 and also see: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=819101 it may help to reduce the number of services running on your computer. to disable a service; click Start, Run, type: services.msc right-click the selected service and click Properties, on the General tab, select Disabled in the Startup type box drop-down list. you could disable these: Alerter Clipbook Computer Browser Fast User Switching Human Interface Access Devices Indexing Service (Slows the hard drive down) Messenger Net Logon (unnecessary unless networked on a Domain) Netmeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (disabled for extra security) Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security) Remote Procedure Call Locator Remote Registry (disabled for extra security) Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security) Server SSDP Discovery Service (this is for the utterly pointless "Universal P'n'P", & leaves TCP Port 5000 wide open) TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Telnet (disabled for extra security) Universal Plug and Play Device Host Upload Manager Windows Time Wireless Zero Configuration (for wireless networks) Workstation [Attribution: http://pcbuyersguide.com/software/system/WinXP-Tips.html] more details on these services at: http://rogier.xszone.nl/windows/xpservices.html and at: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2002010712042239 also at: http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm finally, some viruses sidetrack your AV program, so do an online antivirus scan from: http://www.pandasoftware.es/activescan/ or http://securityresponse.symantec.com/ hope this helps...

Everett, When I install my os the first thing I always do is download all of the critical updates so I'm not sure that would be the cause. I also disable all unnecessary services and always make sure that all the processes running in the background are from my programs and not spyware or malicious programs. Last night I unticked the "use common tasks in folders" and all seemed well but its still to early to say.If that was the problem is there a fix for it because I would like to have my status bars back in my folders and using that method only shows the contents of the folders. I will post back in a couple days and let you know if that was the problem. Thanks again for checking up on me (:

Chunko: does this apply? http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329692