cluberti

You might want to open the Security Configuration and Analysis MMC and compare your machine against the default security template, to see what is different. It is likely some security setting that is non-standard that is causing this, but it would help for you to do an analysis against the default template to see what is different on your machine against an out-of-the-box security configuration.

More than likely it was the nvidia display driver not handling the dwDdCreateSurfaceOrBuffer from dxg.sys (the DirectX Graphics driver) properly.

The error you are getting is a hex 0x3e6 error, which means that the smartui application attempted to access a location in memory (likely to load a .dll) that was restricted, marked no access, or was not initialized. It sounds like you may want to reinstall the application and try again - also, what OS is this? I've seen posts about this application many times in the forum, and I am fairly certain it is a 16bit application. If you're running it (or attempting to run it) on x64 Windows, you will have no luck.

If Internet Explorer is crashing in module kernel32, that means it's likely trying to interact with something down in kernel. This could be anything from afd.sys to your antivirus software or firewall. Could you try it in safe mode w/ networking and see if the problem reproduces there?

If you're getting that error, it means you were likely doing a background refresh of group policy, and either your machine's account on the domain had a security issue, or some process on the machine closed the handle underneath the GP engine during processing (like antivirus software). Hard to say, but it is definitely indicative of a failed background refresh - how frequently does this occur, and when did it start happening?

I'd strongly suggest testing Safe Mode w/ Networking as well, to see if the problems persist there as well. As far as I'm aware, there's no widespread outage on IE - your roommate probably has some BHO loaded in IE, or a shell extension in explorer, causing the issue. Safe Mode w/ Networking should clear that up, if that is the case, and if it works there he'll know he has some cleanup to do.

You can do 802.1x on any port if the switch supports it - it's not limited to wireless, just most common there.

Looks like it's possible. What happens if you uninstall the nvidia drivers from add/remove programs, and change the video to the base video driver?

Generally, I like to set the share permissions as open as possible (everyone / full control, if I can) and tighten things down at the security (ntfs) level.

You should look here.

If MAC filtering isn't good enough, you're looking at 802.1x and a RADIUS server if you want additional security (802.1x will basically only allow EAPOL packets from a machine before it auths against the RADIUS server).

From the KB: Update information The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center: Download the Terminal Services Client 6.0 update for Windows Server 2003 (KB925876) package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CC148041-577F-4201-B62C-D71ADC98ADB1) Download the Terminal Services Client 6.0 update for Windows Server 2003, x64-based versions (KB925876) package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=43C0EAE9-6B64-428F-A9DC-F97F5A1B4493) Download the Terminal Services Client 6.0 update for Windows XP (KB925876) package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=26F11F0C-0D18-4306-ABCF-D4F18C8F5DF9) Download the Terminal Services Client 6.0 update for Windows XP, x64-based versions (KB925876) package now. (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=160CE316-BF2B-48D0-A035-E2ABBC55D8E8) I think you already figured it out, but RDP 6.0 is XP/2K3 only.

I only see this: "File not shared"

Download and install userdump, create a rule for explorer.exe, and it will generate a dump everytime explorer exits (including good shutdowns, so keep that in mind). This is preferable, because it'll also generate a dump if it terminates unexpectedly, which is what you want.

Other people have complained of this problem as well, as was easily found by searching google and google groups. No one as of yet has posted a valid fix out there, other than AOL blames Outlook when questioned (which may be valid). The only thing I've seen people try that helps is to recreate the mail profile in Outlook, and all is well, although that doesn't necessarily fix what was wrong, and the problem can still recur at any time. You should probably contact AOL though, just in case. It seems like this has been happening for a while, as some of the posts go back to early 2006.

APPLIES TO • Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 • Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 • Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server • Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 • Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 • Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 1 I'm guessing installing this hotfix on Vista might be a bad idea.

Is the machine simply rebooting, or is it flashing to a blue bugcheck screen for a second before restarting? I'm guessing it should be a bugcheck, so configuring the machine for a complete memory dump should suffice.

I ask because almost all user-mode components and drivers do not load in safe mode, only kernel-mode drivers (they always load with the kernel). So, if the problem still happens in safe mode, you can be fairly certain that it is either a hardware issue (not likely), or a kernel-mode driver doing this. Since the biggest source of kernel-mode drivers are antivirus, firewall, and antispyware applications (followed closely by backup and virtual CD-ROM software), and most people are running at least one of these types of apps on their box, removal is the next logical step to see what happens (remember that disabling the service or the user-mode tray icon that the kernel mode driver relies on doesn't disable the kernel-mode driver, just the user-mode application's ability to interact with it - which can even be worse!).

MDAC 2.8x any version does not install on Vista. Vista contains WDAC 6.0, which is a superset of MDAC.

No, you will need to use process monitor from sysinternals (or another tool, if you have one).

You have to remember that there are quite a few .dll files for MDAC that are not included in Vista, as they are deprecated. I would strongly suggest running process monitor from sysinternals while trying to launch your application, and see if perhaps it is simply not finding a .dll file (or multiple .dll files) that you could simply copy to Vista and register. This is usually the case in these scenarios, although I would state that getting a Vista-compatible version of the app is a better long-term solution.

The first thing you should always try is to boot into safe mode and see if the problem occurs. Also, this is almost always caused by firewall software or antivirus software, so uninstalling those and checking is also a very good idea.

It might actually be a very good test to download a liveCD linux distro and see if that runs properly.

Hmm... I can't think of any other possible explanations, but I guess anything is possible.

If it can't be done in C, it can't be done