programs won't launch

[waynezo]

Lately about every 2nd or third time I start my computer my programs won't launch and it hangs on shutdown. I have to hit the reset button, then it starts working again. I installed sp3 recently so I uninstalled it, but that didn't fix it. Also I recently installed Threatfire, any known issues? How can I diagnose this problem?

My system,
Athlon XP2400 cpu
Gigabyte GA-7vaxp Rev 1.1 mb with promise onboard raid controller Bios Award F8
Serial No. : 010471933173101421sn0240904160
Kingston value ram 1536mb DDR pc3200 400mhz
Dual 80gig maxtor hd's 7200rpm ata 133 raid 0
Seagate 500GB and 250GB external hard drives
Artec 16X DVD-ROM
Cyberdrive 40X16X48 CDRW
Verbatim 2.4X DVD+RW/R
Liteon Superallwrite lightscribe 16/48 DVD/CDRW
ATI all in wonder 8500dv AGP primary video card
Radeon 9250 256MB PCI Secondary video card
2 HANNS-G 28" High Def LCD Monitor HG281
2 Hyundai 19" LCD Imagequest Monitors L90D+
Antec 430 watt true power ps
Ahanix platinum xp steel case
Windows XP Home sp2
PC Tools antivirus
Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall 4.3
Westell Versalink 327 WDK DSL Gateway
Bellsouth DSL running @ 3 Mbps
VMware running Ubuntu 8.04

[BipolarBill]

Rather than spending days or weeks troubleshooting, why not slipstream SP3 into your XP setup CD and install clean? Search Google for Autostreamer and give it a whirl.

Another good idea is to buy an additional hard drive and run scheduled backups. Use a disk imaging program like Acronis True Image, Norton Save and Restore or Paragon Disk Backup. With this, you can restore a messed up OS or crashed hard drive in minutes, rather than gnashing your teeth when a problem like this occurs.

[DeathWish187]

I don't know about you but the few times I slipstreamed stuff onto discs I had nothing but issues. Every time I installed something or updated something Windows would make me insert the original install disc for some reason otherwise it would just give me more issues than I already had from the slipstream install.
But yea, a fresh install sounds like it would do the trick, especially if you haven't in a while. I just had to do a reformat last week to get stuff working properly again.

[jamhough22]

I agree with DeathWish.......
Even thow i only re-format whenever i really need it (such as windows doesent boot up and the whole thing is messed up after having spend ages trying to think of what the problem is, and rather than trouble shooting, because windows aint that good ai it, and i get soo anoyed that i just cba to do anythin because it is soo easy to reformat )....it is an exelent idea.....

but there comes a time when you have to try and fix things such as important documents etc...

[DeathWish187]

Sometimes things are unfixable no matter how well maintained the computer is, which last resort is a reformat.
Before I formatted, one of the updates I did screwed stuff up and I couldn't watch anything with the Netflix Instant Watch feature. Cleaned it up as much as possible, tried reupdating stuff nothing worked. I only use this computer for internet and watching movies while I play WOW on my gaming computer, otherwise it wouldn't have been as big of an issue. So just backed everything up, reformatted, n everything running just as it should now.