Windows randomly crashes

A

AndrewWorx

Bit poster
I have been using Parallels for about 2 months now and have not had any problems until about 2 weeks ago. Since then, I can only keep Windows open for about 5 minutes max. Then Windows just crashes, shows no error, and returns to the Parallels application screen. There is no description of the error.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Andrew
 
Same problem here also.

I get the Windows XP loading "progress bar" screen, then as soon as I tried to get to the "Welcome" screen it dies. I've also tried booting to safe mode, but XP still dies at the same point there too.


I'm using:
- Parallels build 1922.
- Guest OS: XP SP2, just ran the latest Windows Updates hours before the problem. The guest HDD has about 7GB free space.
- Macbook Pro. 1GB RAM. 1.83GHz
- Mac OS X 10.4.8
- 28.3 GB free HDD space
 
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Have you installed anything new in windows lately? Do you have all the windows patches installed? The most likely cause is some Windows software change that has a conflict with Parallels, so the first step to solving would be identify some change that everyone who has this problem has recently installed. My install continues to work perfectly since beta 4.
 
Everything I've installed is new.

I only installed for the first time yesterday, then had the problem, recreated the VM's hard drive, reinstalled XP, and had the problem again this afternoon after half a day.

I've only installed:
- XP with SP2
- About 50 Windows Updates that download automatically.
- Avast anti-virus
- Kerio personal firewall
- SAP R/3 GUI
That's literally it.

I did also run the Drive Compressor from within the Parallels Control Panel inside XP.

Also, my XP config file and Hard Drive file are all running of a 60GB external USB drive (FAT32 format).
 
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Crashes since 10.4.8

Well everything was working just fine for weeks; I could have WinXP open on the desktop for days. I have not added anything new to Win XP, but did do the 10.4.8 update.

Now WinXP launches fine. However, with just letting it sit on the desktop for about 14 minutes and it closes back to the VM Configuration window. It will launch again with no errors, but in 14 minutes it closes again.

This is frustrating.
 
Most likely some piece of software is activates itself in 14 minutes after boot and cause Windows XP to crash. Is it possible to localize this software by disabling/uninstalling recent software packages one by one?
 
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Hi Andrew

From my point of view: My XP installation is crashing while Windows is loading.. and even if safe mode.. so I can't uninstall anything.

This may very well work for 'ercross'.
 
thebogan,

I suggest you to backup your image and then try to repair Windows XP installation (running install over existing installation will offer such option). If it won't help then you will need to install Windows XP from the scratch, attach your backuped image as 2-nd HDD and transfer your data to new image.
 
There has been nothing new installed in WinXP since I first set it up. It's been running for weeks, night and day with no hiccups. Didn't have any problems until sometime after the OSX 10.4.8 upgrade.

I installed the latest build 1992, uninstalled the tools from WinXP, and reinstalled them with the 1992 build, thinking maybe the newer version was adjusted for 10.4.8. Well, same problem. This in on a MacBook Pro 15" with 2 GB ram.

Ed
 
I didn't have any data in my VM, so I just deleted my virtual machines, uninstalled parallels, rebooted, reinstalled parallels and the virtual machine.

Reformatted my external USB drive as Mac HFS+ Journaled,

I haven't experienced the probem again yet... after an hour of use. We'll see how it goes.
 
Seems fine now

I've been using Parallels now, I have XP installed with all the same stuff as before (no more, no less) including Windows Updates... and I've still had no trouble.

So maybe there was just a glitch somewhere.. or it was related to my configuration:
  • using a FAT32 external drive instead of a HFS+ journaled external drive
  • using an expanding disk rather than fixed
  • upgrading to the latest build of parallels, rather than uninstalling old parallels and installing new build fresh
 
Problem found - Task Scheduler Service

Well, after a couple days I have narrowed down the culprit. I ran msconfig in WinXp and disabled all startup items and services to find that WinXP no longer crashes. I slowly and methodically started enabling services having to wait a certain amount of time to see if it would crash. Finally found the one service that is the problem. Everything else is now turned back on with this one off - Task Scheduler. Made sure there were no tasks scheduled to run, but it still crashes it. So, I now have Task Scheduler disabled on boot up.

Not sure why Task Scheduler should do this, but at least I'm workable again.

Ed
 
Good news! I installed the lastest update 1940, installed Parallel Tools and re-enable the Task Scheduler. It no longer crashes XP. They must have fixed whatever was messing around with Task scheduler.

Ed
 
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