Upgraded to Windows ME..haveing system errors

Question

Ok..so I finally decided to upgrade to windows ME instead of windows 98se. The problem is whenever I go to windows update and update all the criticals for my system..they install fine, but after I restart my puter i get either a blue screen that reads  Windows: Error: OE 016F:BFF8E64B  , press any key to continue....and I have to restart again - it restarts fine and I end up getting a error that reads: USER.EXE everytime I open anything and it shuts done the app., even windows help and system restore. BUT after I restart from there again, I have a time frame of about 5 mins. to do restore again...and the problem is fixed. I am frustreated at this because I just got done paying some money to get this done, the guy said that my system should beable to handle Windows ME just fine after he looked at it and told me not to download anything anymore. I want my yahoo messenger but cannot dl it because i cannot dl the updates it needs, like windows media player. This guy said he would come over to help me get my puter fixed up, but I was wondering if anyone had any other suggestions that I could do myself to fix this?  OR does anyone think I should have this guy reinstall windows ME? OR 98se?   OS Name - Microsoft Windows Version - 4.90.3000  Build - 3000 OS Manufacturer - Microsoft Corperation System Model - Optiplex GX1 350MTbr+ System Type - X86 based PC Processor - Intel(r) family 6 model 5 processor GenuineIntel  ~350Mhz BIOS Version - Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A03 Total Physical Memory -  223.50 MB Available Physical Memory  - 55.90 MB Total Virtual Memory - 2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory - 1.73 GB Page File Space - 1.78 GB   I'm not sure if this is the right info, if ya need anything else let me know. I would appreciate any help I can get with this. Thank you!   Stephenie

Teysee · Answer

I had someone reformat my HD and do a clean Install of windows ME for a fee.(he owns his own bis.). My system use to be windows 98 untill I recieved a few viruses and it completely crashed, please excuse me for referring to it as a 'puter',as it was short for computer,i'm a country girl. Everything worked fine untill I tried to update thru Windows update, my system crashes after the installation of the updates.

Flooby · Answer

Aside from the fact that under the best of circumstances (and even in a figurative sense) Windows ME is hardly an "upgrade" to a properly installed instance of Windows 98SE, and disregarding the possibility that the system is simply rebelling against being referred to as a
"puter," you need to tell us whether you performed an Upgrade installation of ME or a clean installation of ME to a formatted drive. There's a big difference, and the possible suggestions for resolution will have a big bearing on this. If you didn't format the drive first, that's what I'd suggest doing, and then install ME, followed by any necessary drivers (starting with chipset drivers).

Flooby · Answer

You might want to check with the person who installed ME, and verify that they installed the necessary drivers according to Dell's software/driver installation guidelines. Under normal circumstances, a clean installation of ME alone shouldn't produce this sort of problem. Also, make sure you're noting the characters in the error message correctly (re: "OE 016F:BFF8E64B" - is the first character the letter O, or numeral zero?), and that you reproduce the error message(s) verbatim in its/their entirety here.

One other thing - since you indicated that you had virus problems under the previous installation/OS, do you now have a properly functioning and up to date anti virus application installed and operating? If not, and if you're accessing the internet with the system, there's no point in even trying to troubleshoot this problem. We'll take it for granted that the answer to this question is yes, and that you've already performed a full system scan for virus activity, and that there were no positive results for same.

Teysee · Answer

It was the letter O in OE:016F:BFF8E64B    All it said was: ' Windows  Error: OE:016F:BFF8E64B Press Esc to terminate..You will loose any unsaved information. Press any key to continue.' On a blue screen. I promise that is all it said. That was after it went to the color Windows Me screen at startup, I pressed the enter key and it went to a black screen and stuck there, I restarted again and it didn't show up again. Yes I have Ad-aware SE Personal and yes it is up to date and I also have Avast that is up to date. I ran ad-aware and it brang up adware called Alexa, which I just found out thru the virus board on Dell that Alexa comes with Explorer and is supposed to be there. So, I put it on ignore. Avast brings up nothing on a thorough scan. My anti-virus programs were the first things i put on here before I even got on the internet. The guy that did the install said that Windows Me found all of my drivers. I don't know if they are up to date..I certainly will ask him that, if I can. Could that be why the windows critical updates crashed my system after I installed the updates? That kind of makes sense, but I'm not sure, I don't know much about this, I am trying to learn. As for my previous installation, I had the same anti-virus programs but learned that I wasn't updateing them all the way (as far as avast, I didn't see the iAVS update and it wasn't updateing itself). This could be why all the virus and adware stuff got thru, but it happened so fast, I didn't know what was going on and my programs couldn't run to tell me what i had after i recieved the viruses and ad-ware, even in safe-mode.I did see these in my ctrl+alt+del panel before it completely crashed: Wu crt upd , mghtml , Hpztsb07 , Rpcss , , Dw15. The Dw15 kept comming back after I ended task with it about 4 times, then crash.

Flooby · Answer

I don't recall asking about AdAware/malware applications (and Alexa is the least of your worries anyway), but if this is behavior that's immediately following a clean installation of Windows ME (and assuming there isn't some third party application that's causing it, and we're not going to have any way of knowing that here), my guess is that either something was installed improperly, or you have a hardware problems like loose RAM that's causing it. Removing and reseating the RAM, along with double checking all internal hardware connections, including PCI cards, might help, but when you're seeing this sort of problem immediately following a clean installation of Windows, something has obviously gone wrong with that clean installation or the hardware on which it was installed.

It may be something as simple as one of the Windows Updates, but again, it's hard to tell from here, based on the information provided. I'd probably be trying another clean installation if this was occurring on one of my systems (and assuming that hardware problems had been ruled out).

Teysee · Answer

I was just trying to give as much information as I could for help. Thank you for all your help, I will surely check everything over and check into reinstalling if I can't find anything. Thanx again.

Flooby · Answer

You might want to review your User Guide for instructions on running the Dell Diagnostics, so that you can rule out hardware problems, but at this stage of the game, I'm somewhat more inclined to suspect a software configuration glitch.

Windows General

Upgraded to Windows ME..haveing system errors

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