Wednesday, March 12, 2008

How To Fix The Automatic Restart Problem In Windows XP

Windows XP was introduced as the most stable operating system for home users, since it was the first version of Windows for personal usage, that was based on the Windows NT kernel. The Windows NT kernel which was first developed for usage on servers and company environments, where high stability was important, is much more difficult to crash than the old Windows 98 core.

Although the kernel of Windows XP is much more stable than previous versions of the operating system, there are still some rare cases where it may stop responding or it may end itself for security reasons. In this case the user should see an error displayed with white letters in blue background mentioning that the operation of Windows has been ended to protect the user from unwanted results due to software or hardware problems. This type of error messages are also known as "Blue Screens Of Death" abbreviated to BSOD.

With its default settings, Windows XP does not display these error messages, but if a critical system error occurs, it automatically restarts the computer without any warning and without displaying a BSOD. This makes for the average user, very difficult the process of fixing any system failure.

In this article we will explain how this automatic restart feature can be disabled, in order to see a detailed error message with the reason of the system failure. Given this error message, the user can search the Microsoft Knowledge Base or other web sites, to define which software or hardware incompatibilities are responsible for the system crash.

The first step is to right click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop and then select the "Properties" option. Then select the tab named "Advanced" and click "Settings" in the "Startup and Recovery" fieldset. In the window that opens there is an option "Automatically restart" which should be disabled. Then click OK on all open windows and dialog boxes. After following these steps, the operating system will never automatically restart again if a system failure occurs, but it will display a BSOD instead. In this Blue Screen error message there will be displayed an error code or file name in the first 5 lines. This error code or file name must be entered in the search fields of Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com or search engines, in order to narrow down the reason that causes the system crash and find a solution.

Microsoft Knowledge Base usually gives detailed instructions for each type of blue screen error message, so the user must always begin searching there, before looking somewhere else.

By Nick G Gars

Nick Gars writes technical articles for NGI Technology Site where you can find guides and troubleshooting instructions for Windows and most programs we use every day.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_G_Gars

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