Mouse hanged and system halted, Ctr-Alt-delete does not work

[Saint]

why this can happen in my windows 98 sometimes ?
when it happen, i did not do any mistake in running any program, or open too many applications.

it just happened suddenly, and i got to press reset button.
this may happen in windows 2000 too, which is supposed to be stable, but rarely compared to windows98/95.

for linux, such thing NEVER happen.

 

[BoulderHead]

Welcome to windows
I think it may have to do with memory or other such conflicts. I have seen a really cool tool that with one hand let's you hit the control, alt, and delete keys all with one stroke. If I find a link I'll post it for you.

 

[damgo]

It's a system crash... if the crash occurs in the right way in one of the OS's core modules, you'll lose everything like that. Sometimes you lose CTRL-ALT-DEL and still have the mouse; when the mouse cursor stops moving it's usually a sign of a serious crash, since the mouse pointer is done largely in hardware.

 

[Saint]

why it can crash so easily without symtoms?
you may lose your data you're working on, and angered to no avail!

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

The best you can do is upgrade, patch and run utilities on your system. The word of the day is "backup"

 

[Artman]

ME, 95 and 98 are based on the same "KERNEL". In NT, Win 2000, and XP everything that runs is called a "SERVICE". In ME, 95 and 98 the only SERVICE that runs is the Win95 KERNEL. When a fault occurs in ME it usually crashes the KERNEL, and then if it's a math issue the system crashes. In NT or 2000 you log off the problem SERVICE and the system stays on without restarting.

I write programs in C and if I am using my WinME machine and I screw up and start a continuous loop for instance, it forces me to restart the computer, but if I write it on my Win2000 machine, I can just exit the program and it is stable again.

 

[BoulderHead]

What exactly is a Kernel? Is it just the core programming?
I love the way that a program can crash when running winXP and yet nearly all of the time you can control-alt-delete the offender into submission. Is this because the Kernel with winNT creates virtual machines for the various programs to run in, and these virtual machines are not able to get at the Kernel when they screw up?
Computers fascinate me. I wish they had been around back when and where I was going to school.

 

[Artman]

Computers fascinate me. I wish they had been around back when and where I was going to school.

Me too. I'm going back to college for my degree and and one of the courses I'm taking is C programming , but I've been programming them in qbasic and basic and studying them on my own for a few years.

I think the way you described how it works is pretty on target, with "virtual machines(services)" for each application to use. I'm not sure though, operating systems aren't my strongest point in computing.

 

[BoulderHead]

I hope I’m forgiven for dragging this thread off topic, but one of the reasons why I experiment with older Windows operating systems is to gain an understanding and appreciation for the way that operating systems have progressed. I have a 5-way booting system that allows me to select;
DOS 6.22, win3.11, win95b, win98SE, winME, and winXP.
I use XP most of the time and have found that I quickly get used to fewer system crashes and lockups. Booting into win9x/ME I’m reminded about such things before long.
Funny though, win311 seems a lot more trouble free but drivers can be difficult to find and a 16-bit operating system can be seen to be slower than the 32-bit ones. I could go for a 32-bit version of win311 if some genius would create it for me.

 

[russ_watters]

...since the mouse pointer is done largely in hardware.

Key word there: hardware. A hard lockup is usually a hardware issue (a software crash gets you a blue screen of death or an error message). Its possible that you have an irq conflict (check in control panel->system->device manager->view resources by connection. If you have multiple devices using the same irq you can try to get one changed, but its kinda involved.

If its not an irq issue, it could simply be a damaged piece of hardware. And that's VERY difficult to diagnose. Maybe a bad stick of ram, bad video card, anything can cause it. To diagnose you replace one component at a time until the lockups stop.

What exactly is a Kernel? Is it just the core programming?

Yes. Its the core components of the operating system itself. All those icons and windows are just eye candy and interface to the kernel.

Is this because the Kernel with winNT creates virtual machines for the various programs to run in, and these virtual machines are not able to get at the Kernel when they screw up?

Sort of. The main reason that NT kernels don't crash and take the whole system down is that NT keeps a tight leash on all the programs. They are given specific resources and are not allowed to do things like bypass the kernel to access hardware directly. The most common crash for the win9x kernel is the General Protection Fault. This basically means that a program tried to access another program's little chunk of memory. Sometimes this takes down one program, sometimes both, and sometimes the entire system.

Another common issue is the memory leak. When programs close they don't always free up the memory they were using. Worse yet, some programs with flaws sometimes keep asking for more memory. Your memory usage goes up and up until your hard drive (virtual memory) is filled or your system crashes. Either way, poor memory management is why Win9x systems need to be restarted every couple of days. WinNT systems can run for months (even years) without encountering these issues.

 

[BoulderHead]

Thanks for the info Russ,
What about those RAM cleaning utilities, have you had any experience with them so as to put forth an opinion?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
Thanks for the info Russ,
What about those RAM cleaning utilities, have you had any experience with them so as to put forth an opinion?

Nothing the good ol' restart button can't handle.

 

[Artman]

The mouse is also a graphic and problems can be related to the graphics interface, hardware, etc. A test for this is to let windows take control of the mouse by setting the video acceleration in System properties a setting or two toward the less side. If the problem improves, you may have to update your video card drivers.

 

[STAii]

First of all, i would like to tell how badly the microsoft products are programmed.
It seems that Microsoft thinks it is addressing dumb people, that only care about the interface, and don't care about what happens in the background !
The Win9x all lack good memory managment, i once have seen an unassembled version of the Win95 bootloader which seemed like if it was made in 10 minutes by some kind of a biggener (this is what an expert said, i am not really good at assembly yet).

About those are are still using Ctrl-Alt-Del under NT based machines, here is some good news !
You don't need to make two steps to reach the task manager anymore (iow Ctrl-Alt-Del then select "Task Manager"), you can simply do it in a single step, press (Left)Ctrl+(Left)Shift+ESC !

And boulderhead, if you are annoyed of too much OSs, try www.xosl.com , a good OS that actually works as an OS loader

 

[BoulderHead]

I would like to try that STAii, but that link didn't seem have any OS's. It was more about orgasms or something;

THE SOON COMING CLIMAX
(BIBLE PROPHECY—PROOF THE BIBLE IS TRUE AND
WE ARE NOW IN THE LATTER DAYS) and HOW TO BE SAVED


Are you sure that is the correct link?

 

[Sourire]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
What exactly is a Kernel? Is it just the core programming?
I love the way that a program can crash when running winXP and yet nearly all of the time you can control-alt-delete the offender into submission. Is this because the Kernel with winNT creates virtual machines for the various programs to run in, and these virtual machines are not able to get at the Kernel when they screw up?
Computers fascinate me. I wish they had been around back when and where I was going to school.

The kernel is the essential center of a computer operating system, the core that provides basic services for all other parts of the operating system. A synonym is nucleus. A kernel can be contrasted with a shell, the outermost part of an operating system that interacts with user commands. Kernel and shell are terms used more frequently in Unix and some other operating systems than in IBM mainframe systems.

Typically, a kernel (or any comparable center of an operating system) includes an interrupt handler that handles all requests or completed I/O operations that compete for the kernel's services, a scheduler that determines which programs share the kernel's processing time in what order, and a supervisor that actually gives use of the computer to each process when it is scheduled. A kernel may also include a manager of the operating system's address spaces in memory or storage, sharing these among all components and other users of the kernel's services. A kernel's services are requested by other parts of the operating system or by application through a specified set of program interfaces sometimes known as system calls.

Because the code that makes up the kernel is needed continuously, it is usually loaded into computer storage in an area that is protected so that it will not be overlaid with other less frequently used parts of the operating system.

The kernel is not to be confused with the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS).

Some kernels have been developed independently for use in any operating system that wants to use it. A well-known example is the Mach kernel, developed at Carnegie-Mellon University, and currently used in a version of the Linux operating system for Apple's PowerMac computers.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
Thanks for the info Russ,
What about those RAM cleaning utilities, have you had any experience with them so as to put forth an opinion?

Nothing the good ol' restart button can't handle.

Yep. Better to reboot to clean up after windows than to add more crap to the mix.

 

[Sourire]

Originally posted by russ_watters
Yep. Better to reboot to clean up after windows than to add more crap to the mix.

I work in the tech field and it is "tribal" knowledge that if you have windows 98 that Microsoft "highly" suggest your "nuke and pave" reformatt and reinstall every 6 months because of the corruptions that can be caused...

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by Sourire
The kernel is the essential center of a computer operating system, the core that provides basic services for all other parts of the operating system. A synonym is nucleus. A kernel can be contrasted with a shell, the outermost part of an operating system that interacts with user commands. Kernel and shell are terms used more frequently in Unix and some other operating systems than in IBM mainframe systems.

Typically, a kernel (or any comparable center of an operating system) includes an interrupt handler that handles all requests or completed I/O operations that compete for the kernel's services, a scheduler that determines which programs share the kernel's processing time in what order, and a supervisor that actually gives use of the computer to each process when it is scheduled. A kernel may also include a manager of the operating system's address spaces in memory or storage, sharing these among all components and other users of the kernel's services. A kernel's services are requested by other parts of the operating system or by application through a specified set of program interfaces sometimes known as system calls.

Because the code that makes up the kernel is needed continuously, it is usually loaded into computer storage in an area that is protected so that it will not be overlaid with other less frequently used parts of the operating system.

The kernel is not to be confused with the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS).

Some kernels have been developed independently for use in any operating system that wants to use it. A well-known example is the Mach kernel, developed at Carnegie-Mellon University, and currently used in a version of the Linux operating system for Apple's PowerMac computers.

Very informative stuff, thanks!

Yep. Better to reboot to clean up after windows than to add more crap to the mix.

That's kinda the answer I was expecting. I actually have tried several different programs to free up RAM and have to report my own findings that nothing works better than a warm boot except for a cold boot.

I work in the tech field and it is "tribal" knowledge that if you have windows 98 that Microsoft "highly" suggest your "nuke and pave" reformatt and reinstall every 6 months because of the corruptions that can be caused...

I had also heard once a year is pretty standard for a reinstall, but I play on these things so much (experimenting) that I never make it past two or three months it seems.

 

[Manuel_Silvio]

I'm half on Microsoft side, half on good software side. Anyway, this thread seems a good place for my third half which is quite evil.

Windows 98/Me can resist up to one year if they're treated gently but Windows 95 has a fundamental limit in the number of applications you install even if you remove an old application and install a new one.

A registry hive for Windows 95 is limited to 64 KB which means it will be filled after a while (a short while, in fact). There's no way to overcome this and the problem hasn't been fixed until Windows NT 4.0 although it is fatal for you can't do anything to get rid of the useless keys in the depth of registry hierarchy. I used to dig deep into HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE to delete useless keys but even then I couldn't figure out if many of them were really useless.

Even worse, Windows 95 won't report "Error #[beep]: Registry Hive Full!" instead it will report "Missing privileges to modify registry" amidst the installation of some appliaction and you'll wonder if Windows 95 could ever understand what a privilege is. Everyone logs in as root in Windows 95. Even customizations can be stolen from others' accounts. How the hell could it understand what a privilege is?

I'm not saying this to defend Linux against Microsoft. Windows is buggy, Linux is muggy, let alone MacOS or Solaris.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Indigo Jokes - The Beatles and C Programming

Eleanor Rigby

Sits at the keyboard
And waits for a line on the screen
Lives in a dream

Waits for a signal
Finding some code
That will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Guru MacKenzie
Typing the lines of a program that no one will run;
Isn't it fun?
Look at him working,
Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile;
Where is the style?

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Eleanor Rigby
Crashes the system and loses 6 hours of work;
What is it worth?
Guru MacKenzie
Wiping the blood off his hands as he walks from the grave;
Nothing was saved.

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?


-------------------------------------------------------------

Nowhere Man

He's a real UNIX Man
Sitting in his UNIX LAN
Making all his UNIX .plans
For nobody

He's as wise as he can be
Programs in lex, yacc and C
UNIX Man, can you help me
At all?

UNIX Man, please listen
My printout is missin'
UNIX Man
The wo-o-o-orld is your 'at' command


-------------------------------------------------

Let It Be

When I find my code in tons of trouble,
Friends and colleagues come to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
"Write in C."

As the deadline fast approaches,
And bugs are all that I can see,
Somewhere, someone whispers:
"Write in C."

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
LOGO's dead and buried,
Write in C.

I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
For science it worked flawlessly.
Try using it for graphics!
Write in C.

If you've just spent nearly 30 hours
Debugging some assembly,
Soon you will be glad to
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
Only wimps use BASIC.
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
Pascal won't quite cut it.
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
Don't even mention COBOL.
Write in C.

 

[BoulderHead]

It would be a major/minor pain in the bahty but there are programs (What Changed is one) that track all the changes to your system and presents a handy interface to view, delete, copy, them. There are registry editors and uninstallers too which are supposed to remove the unused registry keys.

I have played will all the above and they can be really handy but still, when things get too corrupted, it is easier to reinstall.

 

[Manuel_Silvio]

The best registry cleaners is Microsoft's very own RegClean. That's the only safe one for only Microsoft knows of the horrifying traps inside the registry. However, no registry cleaner can do real cleansing for there are no strict rules for saying if a key/sub-key/value is useless. There are certain rules of thumb that help with that, eg the value points to a non-existent file, but one can always be sure that registry cleaner has found no more than 40 percent of useless entries.

 

[BoulderHead]

Interesting, I've never even tried RegClean and I'll give it a go sometime. The programs which track and create records of system changes whenever a program is installed can be slow (a scan prior and another after the installation) but if someone was really Hell-bent on not having to reinstall their OS it might be worth doing.
I think the software crackers use these utilities to find out how to beat the anti-piracy measures that are written into many software titles.

 

[Dave_3of5]

I found that problems with windows can occur b4 you even get to see any of the windows interface.

Use f5 to bring up the boot menu. And choose the option that shows all the different modules that are loading up at startup.

Some applications -like virus scanners- have modulesthat load up b4 the kernel and believe me this can cause some serious effects.

I had Norton anti virus installed in my comp and it turned out norton wasnt letting any of the o/s modules load up properly which was why my comp stopped at the boot screen ocasionally.

Also even after you unistall some programs they still leave there modules to boot up -I suppose they have altered some of the o/s's components so far as they no longer can be removed- and this can also cause some strange effects. A quick nuke of the hd normally sorts out all these problems and is also the reason why it takes longer and longer for your comp to boot as you use it more

Just a little tip.