problems with programs

[dylanpd]

hi i have a windows xp home edition computer system. it runs perfectly. when i try to start programs (take fruity loops for example) it ran perfect then it suddenly did this: i would click it then for a brief second the command prompt would come up. its too fast for me to see but what i can see it isnt much it says. then nothing happens. I tried to re-install the software and it still doesnt work. This is one of my problems. Another problem that occurs is when i reboot or start my computer.. after typing in my password in... then screen would show my background and the couser. nothing else.. i would have to restard the computer many times to overcome this. help me please i use this computer for alot of important work related task and i would love your help:)

[lmnobs]

Try running chkdsk from command prompt if you need help here is a Micosoft link
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx

Do you use Fruity loops in your Business?

[dylanpd]

nope that didnt work. i dont use fruity loops for my business but i do produce beats on my spare time. i use the computer for sync'ing my phone to my computer and checking e mail's.

[lmnobs]

try hitting the Pause key when you see the error message it will help us to see whats going on .

[dylanpd]

what you mean... clear that up a little bit.. the pause key?

[lmnobs]

When you see the Command prompt you say you see for a brief moment if you could hit the pause break or scroll lock key in the upper right hand corner of your keyboard it may stop the loading process long enough to see what the prompt has or possibly an error message . I also would like to know if you have installed any new programs recently which may be the culprit and do you have an Anti-Virus program that is up to date and run it recently ,if not you need to do this (run an Anti-Virus prog) before we can go much further

[bigH2O]

Another way to see the message is to run the program from a cmd window in the first place. Go to the shortcut of the problematic application and right click on it, then select properties. In the shortcut window there will be a line titled "Target" that will say something like "C:\Program Files\My Program\program.exe". Now lauch a command window by going to Start/Run type cmd and press enter. That should give you a command window sitting at the C:\ prompt. Change to the directory that the program exists in and run the app. (In my example you would type cd "Program Files\My Program" and press enter. Then you would type program.exe and press enter.) Now the program will attempt to start, but whatever error is causing it to shut down will appear in the command prompt window and stay there rather than just flashing on the screen for a couple of milliseconds. Write down the error and post it out here for us to look at if you can't figure out what the problem is from the error message itself.

[dylanpd]

aright i checked it out... it says "Program too big to fit in memory". I have 248 mb's of ram and a 70 gb hard drive with only 3 gb tooken up and a 2.7 ghz intel celeron processor.

[bigH2O]

Sounds like you have a resource hog somewhere in the system. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL which will pull up task manager. Under the performance tab will be an area titled "Physical Memory" It will tell you Total (memory in use, both physical and swap space), Available (physical memory available to the system) and System Cache (amount currently written to swap space). This will give you an idea of how your resources are being used. If your Available memory is extremely low, and your System Cache is also low, your swap file may not be large enough to handle the processes you are trying to run.

You can check the Processes tab to see the current list of running processes and how much memory they are consuming. If you see one with some huge number, figure out if it is something you really need to be running. HINT, don't kill any process that has the name SYSTEM, LOCAL SERVICE or NETWORK SERVICE as the user name. Anything that you don't use regularly should be removed from your startup.

To check the size of your swap file, go to Start/Settings/Control Panel/System/Advanced/Performance/Advanced/Virtual Memory/Change. With only 248 mb of ram and 67 gb of HDD space available, I'd choose "custom size" and bump the swap file up to about 1000 mb for both initial and maximum sizes. Forget windows "Recommended" size as it doesn't know how you are using your system. You'll have to re-boot the system after making this change, but it should give your system some room to stretch it's legs.

Virtual memory is going to be slower than physical memory, so if you want to increase the speed of the machine, bump the physical memory up.

[dylanpd]

thanksssssss that woked :)