How to troubleshoot Windows crashes

This is a fact of life with Windows 95. Windows 98, however, does a lot of this verification for you.

While an operating system reinstall is sometimes the rabbit in the hat, it’s not a perfect solution.

“One problem with re-installing the OS is that, sometimes, the re-install will not fix a problem,” suggested Peterson. “If, after the re-install, the system continues to act abnormally, it is time to make sure that data files are backed up.”

That includes text files, word processing files, spreadsheets, and anything that you want to preserve that can’t be replaced. Back up everything that can’t be reinstalled from a floppy disk, a CD-ROM, or that can’t be downloaded from the Internet.

Then wipe out the hard drive and start from scratch.

Peterson’s next piece of advice is to re-install the user programs from their original CD or diskette sources.

Reinstall these programs at a time and test the operating system after each one. Shut down and re-start to make sure that the problem doesn’t reoccur after you add each program. This way, if the problem comes back, it’s easier to trace the problem back to a particular program and make necessary corrections.

The final step is to restore the data files from the backup, and again check the system to ensure proper operation.

“Remember that computer hardware is either on or off, it is a 1 or a 0, the gate is open or it is closed. Hardware should either work or it shouldn’t,” said Peterson. “Software, on the other hand, is affected by many different things. Some programs can cause incompatibility with other programs. One program can install a DLL file over an existing DLL causing a previously installed program to run improperly.”

Microsoft also provides quite a good troubleshooting guide about errors on shutdown for Windows 95 at:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q145/9/26.asp.

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