Uninstall, or start from scratch

On the 6th of January I took delivery of a new, pre-configured PC from
my employer. In the following 4 days I installed about 20 addition
programs, things like the Opera Browser, Thuderbird, Windows Live
Messenger and Lifecam. Mostly widely used stuff, but a few obscure tools
useful for a website developer.

On the 10th of January I ended up with exactly the same problem as I'd
had on my previous PC; the symptoms of a desktop heap problem, but no
desktop heap problem. I never solved it on the old PC, and I'm no nearer
solving it on the new one. I have to reboot every day.

I seem to have two choices:

1. Re-image the system as it was initially, install the same software,
but leave days between each update, to make it easier to spot when the
problem comes back, and to determine the likely cause.

2. Uninstall the programs that I'd added between the 6th and the 10th,
one at a time until the problem goes away. It might not go away though.

Is there ang good reason to chose one over the other? I'm tending
towards #2, as it is less disruptive. I uninstall one program; if the
problem persists, it is not caused by that program, so re-install it,
and move on to the next program. If I uninstall everything that I've
added (other than the stuff I've added *since* the problem occurred) and
the problem still happens, then I can switch to choice #1.

Comments?

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

Steve Swift wrote:
On the 6th of January I took delivery of a new, pre-configured PC from
my employer. In the following 4 days I installed about 20 addition
programs, things like the Opera Browser, Thuderbird, Windows Live
Messenger and Lifecam. Mostly widely used stuff, but a few obscure
tools useful for a website developer.

On the 10th of January I ended up with exactly the same problem as I'd
had on my previous PC; the symptoms of a desktop heap problem, but no
desktop heap problem. I never solved it on the old PC, and I'm no
nearer solving it on the new one. I have to reboot every day.

I seem to have two choices:

1. Re-image the system as it was initially, install the same software,
but leave days between each update, to make it easier to spot when the
problem comes back, and to determine the likely cause.

2. Uninstall the programs that I'd added between the 6th and the 10th,
one at a time until the problem goes away. It might not go away
though.
Is there ang good reason to chose one over the other? I'm tending
towards #2, as it is less disruptive. I uninstall one program; if the
problem persists, it is not caused by that program, so re-install it,
and move on to the next program. If I uninstall everything that I've
added (other than the stuff I've added *since* the problem occurred)
and the problem still happens, then I can switch to choice #1.

Comments?

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

An explanation of the problem, and details of your system, may get you an
answer to fix the problem instead of wiping and starting over whenever the
error occurs.
If you have an image of the way it was when you first got the PC, #1 would
be the better choice. Uninstalling programs usually leaves bits and pices
behind, and if the problem occurs again, you can't be sure if it's from a
program that's still installed, or the interaction between a program, the
OS, and what was left behind by an uninstalled on.
The error may not be due to a single program, but from a conflict between
two or more. So even if you start anew, install one program, wait a week,
install a second one, and then start getting errors, it may not necessarily
be the second program that's the real problem. It could be the first program
now having a problem with somthing the second one changed/installed.
Sometimes the sequence of installations can cause confilicts. For example,
if one program utilizes a newer VB DLL, and then another program is
installed that writes over that DLL with an older one, the first one now has
a problem. But if the second program was installed first, everything may
work just fine.
Hope I didn't confuse you too much :-)
--
SC Tom

And what an earth is " a desktop heap problem"

"Steve Swift" wrote in message
...
On the 6th of January I took delivery of a new, pre-configured PC from my
employer. In the following 4 days I installed about 20 addition programs,
things like the Opera Browser, Thuderbird, Windows Live Messenger and
Lifecam. Mostly widely used stuff, but a few obscure tools useful for a
website developer.

On the 10th of January I ended up with exactly the same problem as I'd had
on my previous PC; the symptoms of a desktop heap problem, but no desktop
heap problem. I never solved it on the old PC, and I'm no nearer solving
it on the new one. I have to reboot every day.

I seem to have two choices:

1. Re-image the system as it was initially, install the same software, but
leave days between each update, to make it easier to spot when the problem
comes back, and to determine the likely cause.

2. Uninstall the programs that I'd added between the 6th and the 10th, one
at a time until the problem goes away. It might not go away though.

Is there ang good reason to chose one over the other? I'm tending towards
#2, as it is less disruptive. I uninstall one program; if the problem
persists, it is not caused by that program, so re-install it, and move on
to the next program. If I uninstall everything that I've added (other than
the stuff I've added *since* the problem occurred) and the problem still
happens, then I can switch to choice #1.

Comments?

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

Steve Swift wrote:
On the 6th of January I took delivery of a new, pre-configured PC from
my employer. In the following 4 days I installed about 20 addition
programs, things like the Opera Browser, Thuderbird, Windows Live
Messenger and Lifecam. Mostly widely used stuff, but a few obscure
tools useful for a website developer.

On the 10th of January I ended up with exactly the same problem as I'd
had on my previous PC; the symptoms of a desktop heap problem, but no
desktop heap problem. I never solved it on the old PC, and I'm no
nearer solving it on the new one. I have to reboot every day.

I seem to have two choices:

1. Re-image the system as it was initially, install the same software,
but leave days between each update, to make it easier to spot when the
problem comes back, and to determine the likely cause.

2. Uninstall the programs that I'd added between the 6th and the 10th,
one at a time until the problem goes away. It might not go away
though.

Is there ang good reason to chose one over the other? I'm tending
towards #2, as it is less disruptive. I uninstall one program; if the
problem persists, it is not caused by that program, so re-install it,
and move on to the next program. If I uninstall everything that I've
added (other than the stuff I've added *since* the problem occurred)
and the problem still happens, then I can switch to choice #1.

Comments?

Have you tried here to see what is using all those resources?
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

May or may not help, but I'm sure it can lead to resolving your problem.
Buffalo

Steve Swift wrote:
On the 6th of January I took delivery of a new, pre-configured PC from
my employer. In the following 4 days I installed about 20 addition
programs, things like the Opera Browser, Thuderbird, Windows Live
Messenger and Lifecam. Mostly widely used stuff, but a few obscure
tools useful for a website developer.

On the 10th of January I ended up with exactly the same problem as I'd
had on my previous PC; the symptoms of a desktop heap problem, but no
desktop heap problem. I never solved it on the old PC, and I'm no
nearer solving it on the new one. I have to reboot every day.

I seem to have two choices:

1. Re-image the system as it was initially, install the same software,
but leave days between each update, to make it easier to spot when the
problem comes back, and to determine the likely cause.

2. Uninstall the programs that I'd added between the 6th and the 10th,
one at a time until the problem goes away. It might not go away
though.

Is there ang good reason to chose one over the other? I'm tending
towards #2, as it is less disruptive. I uninstall one program; if the
problem persists, it is not caused by that program, so re-install it,
and move on to the next program. If I uninstall everything that I've
added (other than the stuff I've added *since* the problem occurred)
and the problem still happens, then I can switch to choice #1.

Comments?

Check here also on how to increase the desktop heap size in the
Registry, if needed.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126962/

SC Tom wrote:
An explanation of the problem, and details of your system

I get several symptoms, usually when I get to the PC first thing in the
morning (it runs scheduled tasks most of the night):

Instead of the welcome screen, I get the simpler signon popup. It often
has parts of the window missing. sometimes it is just a mostly blank
space. Sometimes the dots appear when I type the password, sometimes
they don't. The logon is successful.

Applications that have been running through the night complain of I/O
errors that go away when I reboot (file write errors, invalid DLL image)

New windows get painted with no title bar. The "X" appears if you hover
you mouse over its location.

Applications simply fail to start. No error messages.

Eventually, neither shutdown nor restart work. I have to power off.

All this looked very much like a desktop heap problem, so I installed
dheapmon.exe, and wrote a script to run it every 5 minutes, capturing
the output in a log. There was no sign of desktop heap problems.

This symptom happened on my old PC, and is now happening on my new PC
(since Jan 10). So it is almost certainly something that I have
installed, or some configuration change that I've made.

It's not a graphics card problem. The system has 3Gb RAM, so its
unlikely to be a lack of memory. Lots of free disk space.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

Buffalo wrote:
Have you tried here to see what is using all those resources?
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Yes. I even wrote a script to run it every 5 minutes, logging the
results. The last time I had the problem, there was no sign of things
going wrong at any tine, and specifically not just before the problem
happened, nor after I'd started getting the symptoms. That was very
frustrating, because it looked exactly like the symptoms reported by
desktop heap problems.

It's because I'm running out of diagnostic options that I'm resorting to
rolling the system back. Incidentally, System Restore failed to restore
(every checkpoint that I had). If that had worked, I could have gone
back gradually all the way to the first day I had the PC.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

Buffalo wrote:
Check here also on how to increase the desktop heap size in the
Registry, if needed.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126962/

I may yet do that, just for the palliative effect. If I were to double
the sizes, then quadruple them, it would indicate that it was probably
not a desktop heap problem if it got no better.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

"Steve Swift" wrote in message

SC Tom wrote:
An explanation of the problem, and details of your system

I get several symptoms, usually when I get to the PC first thing in
the morning (it runs scheduled tasks most of the night):

Instead of the welcome screen, I get the simpler signon popup. It
often has parts of the window missing. sometimes it is just a mostly
blank space. Sometimes the dots appear when I type the password,
sometimes they don't. The logon is successful.

Applications that have been running through the night complain of I/O
errors that go away when I reboot (file write errors, invalid DLL
image)
New windows get painted with no title bar. The "X" appears if you
hover you mouse over its location.

Applications simply fail to start. No error messages.

Eventually, neither shutdown nor restart work. I have to power off.

All this looked very much like a desktop heap problem, so I installed
dheapmon.exe, and wrote a script to run it every 5 minutes, capturing
the output in a log. There was no sign of desktop heap problems.

This symptom happened on my old PC, and is now happening on my new PC
(since Jan 10). So it is almost certainly something that I have
installed, or some configuration change that I've made.

It's not a graphics card problem. The system has 3Gb RAM, so its
unlikely to be a lack of memory. Lots of free disk space.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

It may not be a graphics card problem, but it could be a driver issue. Have
you updated any of the video drivers?
It could me a physical memory problem instead of a lack of memory problem.
Did you reuse any components from your old system in your new one?
How new is new? If it's an older PC, but new to use (if you know what I
mean), it could be an overheating issue. Make sure all the fans, heatsinks,
intake areas, and exhaust areas are free of dust bunnies, dust build-up,
etc. There are a number of freebie temperature monitoring programs if you
wanted to test that.

To test your RAM, you can use Memtest86
http://www.memtest86.com/download.html

Have you tried System Restore from command prompt? Works for me when
firewalls and anti-malware programs get in the way.
"How to start the System Restore tool by using the safe mode option with the
Command prompt in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449 "
--
SC Tom

SC Tom wrote:
It may not be a graphics card problem, but it could be a driver issue.
Have you updated any of the video drivers?
It could me a physical memory problem instead of a lack of memory
problem. Did you reuse any components from your old system in your new one?
How new is new?

The PC's are supplied by my employer, who gets a special deal (IBM) :-)

The "old" PC is now 5 years old, Lenovo M52. It had an ATI Radeon HD3450
video card that I added. The drivers were updated every month (I
initially thought that a bad update was the cause). I ran memtest86 for
12 hours; zero faults.

The new PC is brand new Lenovo M58. Basically the same PC but 4 times
faster. I'm now using the built in Intel Graphics chip. So there is
nothing in the graphics system that is common (other than the displays
themselves).

The only hardware that I've transferred are USB devices: 2 external
drives, Creative X-Fi Surround 5.1, Microsoft VX-1000 webcam. The
soundcard is on the latest drivers. The VX-1000 is on the latest code.
I've been updating everything in sight for months, hoping this will
eventually fix whatever is causing the problem.

Have you tried System Restore from command prompt? Works for me when
firewalls and anti-malware programs get in the way.

Unfortunately, something in my system has been invalidating every System
Restore point since I got the PC (I had about 20 when the problem first
hit. I spent about 12 hours trying every one of them; they all said
"could not be restored". I've heard this can be caused by including
drives other than C: (the default is all non-removable drives). So I've
removed System Restore from D: and E: - they are used mostly for data
and non-work related software, which I don't care if I have to re-install.

This is all very perplexing and frustrating, which is why I'm being
driven towards uninstalling as a diagnostic tool. The equivalent of the
hardware engineer replacing parts until the problem goes away. At least
replacing the software is free. :-)

I appreciate your suggestions, which corroborate that I've been doing
roughly the right things so far.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

"Steve Swift" wrote in message

SC Tom wrote:
It may not be a graphics card problem, but it could be a driver
issue. Have you updated any of the video drivers?
It could me a physical memory problem instead of a lack of memory
problem. Did you reuse any components from your old system in your
new one? How new is new?

The PC's are supplied by my employer, who gets a special deal (IBM)
:-)
The "old" PC is now 5 years old, Lenovo M52. It had an ATI Radeon
HD3450 video card that I added. The drivers were updated every month
(I initially thought that a bad update was the cause). I ran
memtest86 for 12 hours; zero faults.

The new PC is brand new Lenovo M58. Basically the same PC but 4 times
faster. I'm now using the built in Intel Graphics chip. So there is
nothing in the graphics system that is common (other than the displays
themselves).

The only hardware that I've transferred are USB devices: 2 external
drives, Creative X-Fi Surround 5.1, Microsoft VX-1000 webcam. The
soundcard is on the latest drivers. The VX-1000 is on the latest code.
I've been updating everything in sight for months, hoping this will
eventually fix whatever is causing the problem.

Have you tried System Restore from command prompt? Works for me when
firewalls and anti-malware programs get in the way.

Unfortunately, something in my system has been invalidating every
System Restore point since I got the PC (I had about 20 when the
problem first hit. I spent about 12 hours trying every one of them;
they all said "could not be restored". I've heard this can be caused
by including drives other than C: (the default is all non-removable
drives). So I've removed System Restore from D: and E: - they are
used mostly for data and non-work related software, which I don't care if
I have to
re-install.
This is all very perplexing and frustrating, which is why I'm being
driven towards uninstalling as a diagnostic tool. The equivalent of
the hardware engineer replacing parts until the problem goes away. At
least replacing the software is free. :-)

I appreciate your suggestions, which corroborate that I've been doing
roughly the right things so far.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

As a test, try uninstalling the Creative Labs device. I have had numerous
issues with Sound Blaster/Creative Labs in the past.
Did you try System Restore in Safe Mode with Command Prompt? That has
definitely worked for me when normal or safe mode didn't.
--
SC Tom

SC Tom wrote:
As a test, try uninstalling the Creative Labs device.

Well, it's funny that you should pick on the Creative Labs X-Fi USB
soundcard. Windows Media Player says that it is not working, despite the
fact that I'm listening to it right now. In WMP, I switched to the
default sound device (the same card). So I've been looking at regressing
the driver. I found this fix in the prior release:

"System Resources problem when no device is connected to Line/Mic Input,
and that device is not muted".

I'd upgraded the driver last weekend, and I've not had any of the
problems mentioned in this thread since.

I've ordered a PCI soundcard just in case Creative drag their heels
fixing my WMP problem.

If you're wondering what's wrong with the built in soundcard, the answer
is "nothing". I just like having two separate sound cards, so I can use
one for 99% of my needs, and the other for VoIP. This way, I don't get
the system sounds in my VoIP headset.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk