jkdood
2009-11-17, 10:55
I got a new DELL PC (Vostro A840 laptop) with Vista Home basic, as a gift. I already have a SONY VAIO with (I sure do hate the OS) VISTA - going on 2 years - but hey, a gift is a gift.
Just for socially polite background I will say I was going to run side by side tests to see if my SONY was bloated, or sick, or my ISP or LAN too slow, or whatever to see if maybe the SONY was ready for a vacation and the DELL maybe to be his replacement. In other words I was going to compare.
On the DELL after my first limited-activity boot-up I pretty much first tried to ignore or cancel Google Desktop and ToolBar stuff, did a display setting change, then joined my wireless LAN and then did a quick IE7 browse to see if all was operable (OK that included XTUBE), and allowed it to upload and install IE8, which it did. I also noticed "updates were waiting" flag next to the hibernate with sessions in memory button.
After IE8 upgrade was done, it asked me to restart, and I tried to. On that restart and on a dozen more I have tried while checking logs and things, I keep getting some of this craziness:
explorer.exe application error the instruction at "the memory could not be read" restart
The above are the keywords from my google searches to read up on this error condition. Basically it's the "the memory could not be read" error that seems to have been posted about by hundreds of upset users. "explorer.exe" seems to be the most common application associated with the error but there are others.
By the way, I stopped to upload and install the entire McAfee software suite which is free to all COMCAST ISP subscribers and which I have been using on my other laptop. It did not detect any issues to report.
One of the longest active threads in this Forum's MALWARE sub-forum is about someone with an unexplainable error almost exactly like this getting hours and tons of help from one of the member experts. But like hundreds of other threads on this topic or simlar variations, there is no reliable full-proof known solution. It seems to occur in XP as well as VISTA and not only on DELL although DELL seems to be a major victim.
In the middle of all this of course my updates configured and installed, and I had to wait while it said "don't turn off your PC etc etc". Those updates seem to be a reasonably frequent mix-in with a lot of the posted reports of this particular error.
I realize I can download Spybot and other tools and run tests and start a thread with the log and try to get that sort of help. My question is, does that make "perfect sense" at this stage?
What I mean is that I assume I can call DELL and start my warranty free-help period and possibly be put through to the OEM-department of Microsoft for VISTA help if DELL helpers determine it's an OS issue not a h/w problem. We all know how painful certain help-desks can be and we know they will suggest virus amd malware and other things.
It seemed so sensible to try to share this experience because the guy being helped by BLADE in MALWARE right now (for days and days) and others here and elsewhere all have a variation of this error message and are getting nowhere. And boy oh boy the hours and the tedious tests and debugs make you cry with sympathy and also fear!
As a new user I was willing to reinstall my system and do other (approved, safe?) remedial things to help find a remedy and explanation. I have no data or programs to lose yet!
Although the restart (chosen) after the clean McAfee virus scan was the only time the error did not occur, it is still happening. Even after reboot. The error is of course exactly this:
explorer.exe application error
The instruction at 0x760284fd referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be read.
Click on OK to terminate the program.
In the background one sees:
explorer.exe - This program is preventing your computer from restarting
explorer.exe - Application Error
(After clicking OK or X the restart occurs and seems to be OK for business until of course anotrher restart is chosen".)
Comments and general advice please? Thank you!
Just for socially polite background I will say I was going to run side by side tests to see if my SONY was bloated, or sick, or my ISP or LAN too slow, or whatever to see if maybe the SONY was ready for a vacation and the DELL maybe to be his replacement. In other words I was going to compare.
On the DELL after my first limited-activity boot-up I pretty much first tried to ignore or cancel Google Desktop and ToolBar stuff, did a display setting change, then joined my wireless LAN and then did a quick IE7 browse to see if all was operable (OK that included XTUBE), and allowed it to upload and install IE8, which it did. I also noticed "updates were waiting" flag next to the hibernate with sessions in memory button.
After IE8 upgrade was done, it asked me to restart, and I tried to. On that restart and on a dozen more I have tried while checking logs and things, I keep getting some of this craziness:
explorer.exe application error the instruction at "the memory could not be read" restart
The above are the keywords from my google searches to read up on this error condition. Basically it's the "the memory could not be read" error that seems to have been posted about by hundreds of upset users. "explorer.exe" seems to be the most common application associated with the error but there are others.
By the way, I stopped to upload and install the entire McAfee software suite which is free to all COMCAST ISP subscribers and which I have been using on my other laptop. It did not detect any issues to report.
One of the longest active threads in this Forum's MALWARE sub-forum is about someone with an unexplainable error almost exactly like this getting hours and tons of help from one of the member experts. But like hundreds of other threads on this topic or simlar variations, there is no reliable full-proof known solution. It seems to occur in XP as well as VISTA and not only on DELL although DELL seems to be a major victim.
In the middle of all this of course my updates configured and installed, and I had to wait while it said "don't turn off your PC etc etc". Those updates seem to be a reasonably frequent mix-in with a lot of the posted reports of this particular error.
I realize I can download Spybot and other tools and run tests and start a thread with the log and try to get that sort of help. My question is, does that make "perfect sense" at this stage?
What I mean is that I assume I can call DELL and start my warranty free-help period and possibly be put through to the OEM-department of Microsoft for VISTA help if DELL helpers determine it's an OS issue not a h/w problem. We all know how painful certain help-desks can be and we know they will suggest virus amd malware and other things.
It seemed so sensible to try to share this experience because the guy being helped by BLADE in MALWARE right now (for days and days) and others here and elsewhere all have a variation of this error message and are getting nowhere. And boy oh boy the hours and the tedious tests and debugs make you cry with sympathy and also fear!
As a new user I was willing to reinstall my system and do other (approved, safe?) remedial things to help find a remedy and explanation. I have no data or programs to lose yet!
Although the restart (chosen) after the clean McAfee virus scan was the only time the error did not occur, it is still happening. Even after reboot. The error is of course exactly this:
explorer.exe application error
The instruction at 0x760284fd referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be read.
Click on OK to terminate the program.
In the background one sees:
explorer.exe - This program is preventing your computer from restarting
explorer.exe - Application Error
(After clicking OK or X the restart occurs and seems to be OK for business until of course anotrher restart is chosen".)
Comments and general advice please? Thank you!