Category Archives: XP Mode

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Windows will not boot with a Stop Error 0x0000007B

A very common BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) is a STOP error 0x0000007B and may indicate either a hardware, software or driver issue.

Please see the great troubleshooting guide put together by Tim Fisher on about.com

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/stop0x0000007b.htm

One thing that Tim does not mention is that sometimes it is necessary to slipstream the AHCI SATA Controller Drivers into your Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation media.  This can easily be done by downloading and using nLite to slipstream drivers and updates into your Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 CD Media, you can get the application from http://www.nliteos.com/

Common AHCI Sata Drivers include:

Intel – http://downloadcenter.intel.com (Look under Chipset, Chipset Software and then Intel Rapid Storage Technology.  You will need the F6 Drivers for either x86 or x64 depending on you using 32bit or 64bit windows)

Nvidia – http://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-uk or http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

AMD/ATI – http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx

Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7, Windows XP, XP Mode

A Virtual Machine, Laptop or Computer running Windows XP is Slow to Startup and/or Applications take a long time to load

These two issues can occur for two different reasons, a corrupt file in the Windows Prefetch Folder or it could be that the Prefetch Folder is cluttered.

To resolve these issues you need to delete the contents of the C:\Windows\Prefetch folder and then restart your computer.

The Prefetch folder is just a cache of recently used application executables and will be recreated based upon the applications you use most frequently.  Over time the folder becomes cluttered with rarely used and prefetched applications hence the launch of applications becomes slower.

You may find following the clear down of the Prefetch folder and reboot that the first time you open each application it is still a little slow, ths is because Windows will automatically re-add the application on its first launch to the prefetch folder.  After your first use of the common applications everything should now be much faster and you should find startup times have been reduced.