DrewWinters

I think you are right - the only possibility is that this is related to the "run as administrator" issue - that is, that it is greyed out in the compatibility menu. I don't have a regular copy of Vista installed to check, is this supposed to be available? Is that any different than the "Run as Admin..." off the context menu?

The error message is back, but it appears at a different time now. I don't see how it could be related to the NX bit, since that is now disabled at the BIOS and in Windows. So far it has only shown up in two places. Sporadically in Half Life 2; sometimes when the game starts to load a new area it crashes - not every time it loads, but it only crashes when it tries to load. Need For Speed Carbon Demo crashes every time it starts to load the game. That is, it makes it through the opening logos, but once past the EA logo, it crashes with the same error message. Where as in every message before the first hex number was the same as the second hex number, this time they are different numbers:"...instruction at 0x775d1884 referenced memory at 0x000bffff." Anyway, I doubt this is related to vLite... I've got the system overclocked now, so it is possible I'm generating memory errors now - but I doubt it, since it's passed hours and hours of stability testing, plus I don't think a speed-related memory error would be so repeatable (NFS Carbon is repeatable, but Half Life 2 is not...<shrug>) EDIT: Overclocking is not the issue, I've tried stock settings and it changed nothing. Also, I tried compatibility mode and "Run as administrator" without any luck. Although, see my post above about "Run as Administrator" being greyed out in the compatibility menu.

To be honest, I'm not sure why I turned it on... that is, I'm not sure how I expected it to help me. I'm not particularly concerned with security. I am a tinkerer though, I can't leave things be... maybe I changed it just because it was something to change. <smacks himself in the forehead> Oh well, you live and you learn. If you do leave it in, a little warning label would be helpful to alert fools like me. Thanks again! Now that everything is working, I'm really enjoying the extra space vlite has freed up for me - especially on my Thinkpad, as it only has a 60gb HDD!

That was it! Nuhi, you're my hero. I switched off DEP and rebooted - everything seems to be working now! I love easy solutions....

Half Life 2: Episode One has started working, magically. Half Life 2 works just fine as well. Not sure why it crashed the first time, but I just played for a couple of hours without a crash. I'll try DEP, I thought of that at one point, but then forgot before I tried it...

I have checked my hardware, and it seems to be fine - but more importantly, I actually have two completely different systems - both with the same error. The installation is a little different on each one, but they are very similar. One is a brand-new desktop I just built, and the other is an 1.5 year old Lenovo/IBM X41T Thinkpad. On my Thinkpad, I've been using Vista RC1 since November and Beta2 since June (? whenever it went public) without this error. I never installed the full retail copy on my thinkpad, just vlite. I had the full retail copy on my new desktop for about a day - not very long. To my knowledge, all the same drivers were installed before and after on each system - except for the ones that no longer work. (The tablet button driver for the X41 and the onboard sound for the desktop are the only two that come to mind.) I didn't mean to say that any of these errors were random, just that I don't know what the pattern is regarding which programs work and which do not - but every program that doesn't work crashes in the same way every time.

I'm not using the "Administrator" user profile, but my only user profile is an Administrator. (Which has always been true for me, so I've often wondered why "Run As Administrator" is even there...?)

Well, my snipping tool works just fine - as evidenced by the image of the error in the first post. I did remove "Secondary Logon" from the installation - the description of that entry in Vlite reads that Run As Administrator still works even if it is removed, but perhaps he is mistaken? Perhaps this is why the option is greyed out in the compatibility tab under file properties? I don't have a "normal" install of Vista handy to compare to. I don't recall ever using that option from the properties window - only from the right-click context menu. Can you think of another test to verify that the context menu "Run As Admin" is actually working? Then again, if my snipping tool works and yours didn't, perhaps we aren't having the same problem? The event log error I'm getting seems a likely candidate - but I haven't a clue how to fix that.

Thanks, I just tried that - but it didn't work. EDIT: I just tried "Run as Administrator" when right-clicking. The File Properties -> Compatibility -> Privilege Level -> Run this program as an administrator" is greyed out.

Oh, I didn't realize vlite included an .ini file on the install disk with the relevant information... here it is, both in text and as the file itself. ; vLite preset file [information] Version = 1.0 beta on 2.0.50727.312 Microsoft Windows NT 6.0.6000.0 Target = Windows Vista ULTIMATE 32bit 6.0.6000.16386 [Components] Compatibility1 = 1 ;# Drivers # Display adapters Modems Printers-Apollo Printers-Brother Printers-Canon Printers-Citizen Printers-Dell Printers-Diconix Printers-Epson Printers-Fuji Xerox Printers-Fujitsu Printers-Generic Printers-Gestetner Printers-HP Printers-IBM Printers-Infotec Printers-Konica Printers-Konica Minolta Printers-Kyocera Mita Printers-Lanier Printers-Lexmark Printers-Minolta Printers-Minolta-QMS Printers-NEC Printers-NRG Printers-Oce Printers-Oki Printers-Okidata Printers-Olivetti Printers-Panasonic Printers-QMS Printers-Ricoh Printers-Samsung Printers-Savin Printers-Seikosha Printers-Sharp Printers-Sony Printers-Star Printers-Tally Printers-Tektronix Printers-Wipro ePeripherals Printers-Xerox Scanners ;# Hardware Support # Fax Support Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) Smartcards ;# Languages # Japanese Korean Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese ;# Multimedia # Media Center Movie and DVD Maker Shell event sounds SideShow Windows Calendar Windows Media Samples ;# Network # Connect to a Network Projector Internet Information Services Remote Desktop and Assistance Remote Desktop Client Windows Mail ;# Services # Error Reporting Microsoft DFS Replication Offline Files Remote Registry Secondary Logon Windows Remote Management ;# System # BitLocker Drive Encryption Natural Language Parental Controls ReadyBoost Reliability and Performance Monitor Security Center Sync Center System Restore Windows Backup Windows Defender [Options] DEP (Data Execution Prevention) = Enabled (AlwaysOn) UAC (User Account Control) = Disabled Power scheme = High performance Hibernation = Off Show hidden files and folders = Yes Show extensions for known file types = Yes [Protection] [Drivers] C:\lj1000hb\HPLJ1000.INF C:\NVIDIA\WinVista\158.42\nv_disp.inf [unattended] Last_Session.ini

I did a fresh install of Vista using Vlite... Now I seemingly-random programs will either crash or fail to run at all, giving me an error like the one pictured below: "...instruction at xxxxxxxx referenced memory at xxxxxxx. The memory could not be written." I have searched here and elsewhere online, and it seems this error is often caused by a missing or corrupt DLL. I have included with the image of the error an example of an event log error that recurs every ten minutes - perhaps they are related? I can't figure out what I could have cut that would cause such a ruckus... but I did cut out a lot - I think my final ISO was only about 1.2gb. I will post again when I can get a shot of exactly what is left on the install disk... I used vlite 1.0b. Examples of programs affected: SP2004 Orthos (will not run) Supreme Commander (will not install) Half-Life 2: Episode One (crashes when it loads a new level; I haven't tried HL2 yet) Intel Thermal Analysis Tool (splash screen loads, then crashes) I would really like to avoid reinstalling Windows - at the very least, I'd like to avoid having to install a full-size install of Vista just to avoid this. I did not encounter this problem when I had a full-install, but now that I think about it, I'm not sure I ran any of those particular programs. Please help me, I would really like to get up and running! I'm certainly not a professional IT guy, but I'm fairly proficient at troubleshooting, but I've never encountered this error before and I'm not sure how to track it down or fix it. Let me know if there is any more helpful information I can give. TIA