How can I prevent this from happening to me in XP?
A regular in the Win98/ME groups often tags his posts with "Error
Messages are Your Friends." While no one enjoys dealing with error
situations, this is the means the system uses to communicate a problem
that cannot be resolved with the builtin exception and error handling.
A lot of behind the scenes problem solving happens that the user never
encounters. By the time an error message appears, things have really
gone pearshaped and intervention is usually necessary to rectify the
problem. Like any other error message, the text in a blue screen error
usually provides the clues needed to track down the cause of the error.
So one really doesn't want to prevent blue screens. Instead, fix the
problem(s) that cause them to appear in the first place.
I guess you could avoid a few by trying to install only hardware and
software that have received good reviews from other XP users. Flakey
software and drivers usually cause blue screens to show up rather
quickly.
Sharon F
MS MVP
[Windows XP - Shell/User]
