Normal for programs to randomly crash on vista?

Is it normal for my programs to randomly crash on vista64? Sometimes, programs would just randomly not respond for a bit, and you have to wait for it to respond, or the program not responding window will pop up when you click on the program.

 

Which "programs" would they be? Could you list some?

 

^^^^Yes, please do.

And, if youre doing too much at once than your system can handle, thats what usually causes this.

What are your specs also? And how many things do you have open at one time?

 

2.26ghz dual core 4gb ram

Almost every program can and has randomly crashed I think. Like one time I opened MS Word, and for a couple of seconds it wasn't responding. WHen I clicked on it a couple of times the program not responding window came up. Other programs such as TES 4 oblivion and fallout and CS 1.6, and even my CyberPower DVD program and Windows Media Player. I guess maybe sometimes vista takes a while to do things and you shouldn't interrupt it?

 

No, it's not normal for programs to be crashing like that, especially with those specs.

Have you done any tweaks to Vista such as disabling your pagefile?

 

It is pretty abnormal.

What tweaks have you done, and also, do you have more than one type of anti-malware software installed? What kind of computer is it, and are you working off a fresh install, or one provided via some OEM?

 

Sounds like you have a doggy installation. Try repair or re-install the OS.

cheers ...

 

It's not normal for it to happen with regular frequency; however, a program that simply stops responding for a little bit (e.g., 30 seconds) and then starts responding again is not crashing. It may be malfunctioning, but more likely than not what's happening is that you either have a buggy driver somewhere, or you've got something like bluetooth or wireless turned on even though you're not using it and there isn't another BT device or wireless network around you could connect to.

That being said, at least with some third-party apps you will probably get a few more crashes using _Vista 64-bit over what someone using _Vista 32-bit might see because a lot of code still cannot deal with a 64-bit OS and/or the app is old and was coded for XP and is looking for something that got moved when Microsoft wrote _Vista.

To find out some more detail about what's happening, whenever a program crashes, check to see what got logged in your event logs; odds are, there will be a logged event with an event ID and the name of the specific module that crashed (frequently it'll be a .dll library with an unrecognized name - google the name and you should find out what .exe it belongs to).

 

Yes, you may want to reinstall your OS/Set back to factory settings.

 

Well the thing is I didn't do anything to the OS since I got the computer, which was almost a year ago. I think I disabled the pagefile though.

When I first got the computer (a NP2096), seconds after setting up the OS, I got a windows explorer has stopped responding thing. This was like a bit right after I took the laptop out of the box and went through the vista new computer set up thing.

I have avira and comodo firewall running all the time. I've never changed a single driver since I got the computer.

How do I access my event log?

 

Enable the pagefile again; that is likely the cause of this.

You may want to update your drivers - it could help.

Type "Event Viewer" in the start menu search.

 

Isn't the pagefile useless? I think I read somewhere that I should disable the pagefile or something.

What's the best way to update to new drivers? I know for GPU drivers you have to run driver cleaning utilities to completely get rid of the old driver. Does this apply to drivers in general? Also, how do I know which version of a driver is the best one? New ones aren't always the best right?

 

No, the pagefile is not useless. You may get more, or less, use out of it than the average user, depending on your hardware and software configuration and on what you do with the system. Don't believe everything you read - that goes 100 times for things you read on the internet, and don't do what others tell you to do without understanding why you should be doing it (i.e., the real underlying facts, not just the "explanation" given you by the person telling you what to do - that goes for me, too ) and understanding what the risks are, either way, and the net cost/benefit analysis.

Generally speaking, the newer the driver, the better it is, unless you have a specific, articulable, reproducible reason why an older version should be used instead. The best source for driver updates is the support website of your computer's OEM. Most drivers do not need to be completely uninstalled before the new driver is installed; however, if you start having problems with the new driver after installation, then you may be well-advised to uninstall the driver, clean any remains out, and then go with a clean re-install.

 

Did you do disk clean up? Please tell me you did.

 

Ofcourse it is not normal for programs randomly crash on Vista!

 

I do disk cleanup and defrag it regularly. I looked at the event viewer but I don't understand the error reports. I just loaded fallout 3 the other day and it randomly crashed when I loaded it. THe windows error report thing told me to install a new patch for it from bethesda.

btw i DON'T have a spyware detector installed

 

As others have said, in your case you should be using pagefile.

You said you've had this rig for a year but haven't done anything to it. The truth is, you've done a great many thing to it. You've browsed the web, installed games, and I'm assuming you've also installed and removed other software. All of these things and more, can have unforseen side effects as well.

You didn't say you were having your problems for the duration of your ownership so I'm assuming the problems are more recent. Have you done a system restore? A simple restore may solve your problem. The system restore feature is a great tool.

 

I love the OP's belief that it might actually be normal for Vista to randomly crash. I'd love to see the reasonings behind it. In some bizarro world there are millions of people who use an OS that regularly crashes and hey, no big deal, we'll just keep on trucking. Ya know, cuz it's normal.

 

I'm not a stranger to crashes in Vista. That's because I like seeing where the limits are while overclocking.

However, I've yet to have a crash otherwise.

 

I know that world. There, cars suddenly explode on the street all day long, food just happens to be toxic, houses happen to implode. and that all, several times a day!!.

don't you life in such a world?

last crashes of my vista (except for the soundcard driver for my external soundcard) was, uhm, about a month back. and it was the 3rd crash that year? and it's the worst year since i have vista.

so no, vista doesn't let randomly crash apps all day long.

 

actually I've been having problems with my laptop since the first day I got it. As I said in an earlier post, 5 minutes after first turning on the computer and just looking around to see what vista was like, I got a Windows Explorer stopped responding. The reason I thought it was normal is because people always say vista is buggy and problematic.

Another problem involves my MSOffice, which keeps on asking me whether or not to wait for a printer. This window pops up 2/5 times I open any MS Office application. I do not have any printers or printer related application installed, though I'm thinking about installing a PDF writer to solve this issue. This happened a lot during the time of year when I had to use MS Word and Excel a lot.

Yesterday my Fallout 3 crashed like 7 times in a row when I tried to open it. It kept recommending me upgrade to a newer version. Then I changed my AF filtering from 5 to 4 and it immediately stopped crashing. I just felt like saying this.

here's another problem: WHen I go into My Computer with no CD or DVD in my DVD drive, and I right click the DVD Drive icon [DVD Drive (D: )], my computer freezes (explorer stops responding and I have to restart it).


btw I renabled pagefile. I hope I stop getting problems.

 

I've not had any crashes with _Vista, either, although I have had some apps crash - I also had a driver that went whacky for a bit, and I have to say that _Vista handled it much more gracefully than XP ever would have (XP would probably have crashed itself; _Vista did not).

@person135: You've probably already answered this question, but it's been a while so I can't remember the whole course of the thread, so here goes: have you done a clean or back-to-factory reinstallation of the OS?

 

No I did not restore it to factory settings or do a clean installation as I did not see a need to. I didn't change any drivers or anything. Just installed programs and games and such. I did disable the pagefile, which I re enabled. I'll try to remember other system changes I made.