i gotta few..

my moms computer is struggling and she sent for me. its windows 2000 which i am not terribly familure with, so bare with me. what are we looking at-- most likely some problem from a downloaded file, but im not sure. i ran norton and came up with nothing. basically when you click on any desktop icon other than IE an error message comes up that says Explorer.exe has caused an error and will now shut this program, an error log is being created. firstly, where can i find the error log, im sure that is of help. and secondly, where can i find system restore. when i searched for both of those items in the help program nothing relevant came up. i should also mention that SOME programs are able to be run from the start menu but some bring up the error message no matter what the route.

i guess while im tryin to fix her computer i should also ask you if someone knows the win2000 version of winME's msconfig? this comps resources are low and there is a whole slew of programs in the startup...

thanks for all your help.

 

ok, scrap the startup questions and i found the system restore however there have been no backups created. my ME sets up these checkpoints automatically, is there a similar function in win2000.. and i still cant find the error log.

thanks.

 

You have at least 3 error logs. Informatative too. Called Event Logs and there will be at least Application, Security, System. The others are mostly server related and only loaded if you put certain functions like DNS server on the machine.

I've had excellent luck matching events with M$ online support articles in most cases or their technet articles for slightly more arcane stuff.

For some reason, they left msconfig off NT4/2K. It's back with XP. Luckily the XP version works fine on 2K - just isn't there. Truth be told, I prefer Startup Cop a msconfig substitute, anyway. But if you prefer the real thing, Msconfig XP.

System Restore (with checkpoints and all) is another feature they left out of 2K but put back in with XP.

At this point, in addition to checking the event logs and before fine tuning the startup stuff, I'd do the following in this order:

- dump all temporary internet files and temp files (including those under her user account in Documents & Settings)

- start~run~cmd and at the command prompt (assuming C: is the system partition, chkdsk C: /r, answer yes to running it at next boot, then reboot.

- start~run~sfc /scannow and let the utility scan for bad system files and replace any found. You'll need the install CD for this to work but not booted from it.

- download and run both Ad-aware and
Sypbot to remove any spyware/malware.

- if not already loaded, download and then install SP3. Don't run the install from the web.

 

thanks for your help. i have attempted to follow your instructions but im still a bit in the fog. first, please explain to me how and what to look for in the event logs. i ran ad aware and got rid of all my temp files and successfully ran chkdsk C: /r - after that i ran scannow (without the disk) and it appeared to scan my files again but nothing else. i dont know what SP3 is. thanks for the help and for explaining some would be basic things..

sox