Windows XP - all programs and files bring up various errors

Every now and then my winXP machine at work will get into this state.
It will be fine one day, I leave it on over night, and in the morning
when I come in, everything I click on to try and open, files,
programs, even task manager, result in one of the following errors-

Insuffiecient System Resources exist to complete the requested service

Application failed to initialize properly (0x000012d)

(null) is not a valid Win32 application

The only thing I can seem to do is reboot, and this fixes it. It
happens less often lately and I can't find anything specific to narrow
down when it happens.
It's behind a very secure firewall, has regular anti-virus software
updates and scans, windows is updated all the time, I've scanned the
drive for errors.
What would keep causing this and how can I stop it?

 

clean the registry and do a system restore back to day one.

 

'Clean' the registry? How? It's been happening for more than 1 day so
a restore would have to go back much farther. On a side note, whenever
I have needed to try a restore point, on any computer, even when I set
restore points manually, 99% of the attempt to pick a restore date
fails, windows reports that it cannot restore to that date. It gives
no reason why or recommend a date, it just simply fails.

 

In

I've never had much luck getting restore to work when booted normally,
but running restore from safe mode is almost always OK.

 

You not shutting down the computer. There's a longer explanation, but I
won't bore you with it unless you specifically ask for it.

 

Ok then it is seriously time to call in the real tech people and let them
straighten it out. It ain't your machine so let the boss flip the bill if
he wants it working. Or have him get you a newer one that works.

Absolute solution: Attach 1 stick of dynamite to case with duct tape. Apply
a 40 pound sledge hammer to the dynamite. Or, take machine to roof and drop
it onto the ground with dynamite attached.

 

It's not that serious of a problem, thought I would try to research it
myself. I've seen all these errors before, but never seen a PC get
into a state where nothing will open or function because of these. I
can't even look at task manager to see what might be going on. I can
just reboot, but I am interested in knowing what exactly is going
wrong.

 

Yes, please give me the details.

 

Classic Memory Module fault from overheating

 

Alice. Please do not touch the Registry with any Registry Tool. You are playing
Russian Roulette with your computer when doing that. If you are not familiar with
the Registry and you do not know what the tool wants to remove then do not touch it.
All Registry Cleaning tools are snake oil remedies.
Even if the program makes back up it is a fool hardy move. If the computer will not
boot then how do you get to the backups.Cleaning the registry does not make your
computer faster or save you space. LEAVE IT ALONE

--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.

'Clean' the registry? How? It's been happening for more than 1 day so
a restore would have to go back much farther. On a side note, whenever
I have needed to try a restore point, on any computer, even when I set
restore points manually, 99% of the attempt to pick a restore date
fails, windows reports that it cannot restore to that date. It gives
no reason why or recommend a date, it just simply fails.

 

I really want to hear your explanation Chuck. Let her rip.I have the time

 

Bill Baker "contributed" in 24hoursupport.helpdesk:

You forgot to mention Evan Platt.

 

Start digging:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308041

^_^

--
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Proof of Americas 3rd world status:
http://www.ramusa.org/
Cash for *who*?
http://www.bartcop.com/list-the-facts.htm
http://www.pavlovianobeisance.com/

 

An honest answer that took some thought. Nice to see.

However if you don't mind, a technical critique as to why it's
the wrong way to go.

Way too general and points in the wrong direction in terms of startup.
Microsoft has always insisted that startup is a feature and not a
deficit in their OS's. Something the facts simply don't support. More of
that politics is blatent here.

Technet *is* useful if you get an error with a *clean* OS, along with
all Microsoft software being just as pristine. Technet assumes you have
already made *absolutely* sure that is the case in all their articles.
Mostly it's bug fixes for problems with their software. This also means
no startup running and you have an error that happens *only* with
Microsoft software. That includes all other software of theirs as well.

Microsoft should make this clear, but then there's that startup party
fixing elections again <g>.

 

Well computer software is largely written in C++ and some other
languages that don't have checks for dynamic memory allocation (memory
use for variables that can vary depending on circumstances). So as a
result, the deallocation or freeing of that memory when it's no longer
needed can be imperfect. This results in less and less total memory
available, eventually leading to your problem. There are two basic
solutions to this problem. They partially depend on finding the
offending program or simply not having it run for an extended perdiod of
time. Hence shutting down nightly. The most reliable way of narrowing
down this relies on you shutting down *all* background (startup)
programs and seeing if the problem is then fixed. If it isn't, It may be
time for a full malware/trojan/virus scan of your computer with just
updated files. The alternative method I already mentioned: having the
computer turned off when you're not using it. Like a light bulb.
Computers start up *extremely* fast these days, so worrying about the
delay for that is really only limited to waiting for all those startup
programs to finish loading, not the OS.

start->run "msconfig"<enter> (without " marks naturally)
disable startup. Apply and yes to restart. Depending on your SP version,
XP *may* ask to restore those startup lines. That can be simply done by
undoing what you just did in msconfig and if you accept to do it here,
the next time the computer starts, all those programs will be running.
Thereby undoing the whole procedure. A pretty stupid feature in XP IMHO.

 

"Windows cannot query for the list of Group Policy objects. A message
that describes the reason for this was previously logged by the policy
engine."

Got a message you didn't read?

 

And *moran* #2 lowers the global IQ.

 

One could say that is the solution to you, Stupid.

 

Bad idea.

 

WTF?????