[Mike Seddon]

Hi all,

My wife's new laptop arrived yesterday. I followed the advice on here and got one with XP. It loads really quick which is exactly what I wanted and everything else seems to be working fine.

However.... (you knew there was a however!).

As it is shut down there is a message displayed with that "thudding sound" you get when Windows displays an error message.

The problem is that I can;t see what the message says as it's on the screen for a split second and then windows closes.

Question: Is there an error log I can check to see what is being displayed? Or maybe some way I can pause the close process to read what it is saying.

Thanks

Mike

[CPLTD]

Hiya Mike,

No 1: What model laptop is it , list model number and spec

No 2: The thud you here can be quite common on some laptops as the hard drive is shutting down,

No 3: if instead of shutting down you just close the lid and go into hibernate mode can you tell me if the same error comes up as you lift the lid back up,

How to View Event Logs

To open Event Viewer, follow these steps: 1.Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, then click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. Or, open the MMC containing the Event Viewer snap-in.2.In the console tree, click Event Viewer.

The Application, Security, and System logs are displayed in the Event Viewer window.

How to View Event Details

To view the details of an event, follow these steps: 1.Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, then click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. Or, open the MMC containing the Event Viewer snap-in.2.In the console tree, expand Event Viewer, and then click the log that contains the event that you want to view.3.In the details pane, double-click the event that you want to view.

The Event Properties dialog box containing header information and a description of the event is displayed.

To copy the details of the event, click the Copy button, then open a new document in the program in which you want to paste the event (for example, Microsoft Word), and then click Paste on the Edit menu.

To view the description of the previous or next event, click the UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW.

How to Interpret an Event

Each log entry is classified by type, and contains header information, and a description of the event.
Event Header

The event header contains the following information about the event: •Date

The date the event occurred. •Time

The time the event occurred. •User

The user name of the user that was logged on when the event occurred. •Computer

The name of the computer where the event occurred. •Event ID

An event number that identifies the event type. The Event ID can be used by product support representatives to help understand what occurred in the system. •Source

The source of the event. This can be the name of a program, a system component, or an individual component of a large program.•Type

The type of event. This can be one of the following five types: Error, Warning, Information, Success Audit, or Failure Audit.•Category

A classification of the event by the event source. This is primarily used in the security log


Mabye post a screen shot of the log for us to veiw if possible Mike, you can do this by pressing the prtscrn button on your keyboard then opening the paint program and seleecting paste then selecting save as a jpg for us to view,

I hope this helps bud,

[Mike Seddon]

Thanks. I'll check out the logs.

The "thud" was probably badly explained. It's that "ding" sound you get when windows displays an error message. It wasn't the hard drive closing down.

Thanks again. I'll check logs and get back to you if I can't get this resolved.

Mike

[Mike Seddon]

Thanks for the tip.

I found the Application Popup in the event logs: Its was dwwin.exe - DLL initialisation failed. THe application failed to initialise because the window station is shutting down.

I've searched a few forums and it appears this is Dr Watson that is having problems.

Obviously something preinstalled because I didn't install it.

Advice seems to be to diactivate it which I'll porbably do.

Thanks again

Mike